LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.. Copyright No..... 

Shell'...?) v 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



"A Way That Seemeth Right." 

Proverbs xvi., 25. 



An Examination of 

" Christian Science." 



X BY v" 

Hf MARTYN HART, D.D. 

Moderator and Medallist in Experimental and Natural Science, Trinity 

College, Dublin. Author of "A Manual of Chemistry," etc., and 

Dean of St. John's Cathedral, Denver, Colorado. 






NEW YORK : fi l <\ f \r*' 

JAMES POTT & CO., Publishers, *A \ff t * 

FOURTH AVENUE AND TWENTY-SECOND STREET. 
1897. 



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1WA8H1M22S! 



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Copyright 1897 



J. W. HART 



PREFACE. 



In the work of my ministry I have found so many 
good people distressed by the specious seduction of 
this novel cult, "Christian Science;" so many families 
divided by it; so many dying persons sorely hindered 
by it; so many professing to have found peace through 
it ; so many charlatans robbing the sick of their 
slender income by means of it, and so often have I 
been appealed to for advice and explanation con- 
cerning it; that I have, as a shepherd of the sheep, 
attempted to set forth in this book the unscientific 
nature of its pretensions, and at the same time to 
point out the natural explanation of its cures. 

I pray God that, in His Mercy, He may be pleased 
so to bless this endeavor, that it may prove to those 
who are i weak in the faith ' a ' savour of life unto 
life ' and an edification unto the Body of Christ. 

H. MARTYN HART. 

The Deanery, 
Denver, January, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

ON HEALING. 

Miraculous Cures. Freedom from Sickness. The Power of the 
Devil. S. Paul's Infirmity of the Flesh. The Uses of Sick- 
ness. King Hezekiah's Rebellion against the Word of the 
Lord, and its Results. The Efficacy of Prayer. 

CHAPTER II. 

ON HEALING. 

Lourdes. The Power of the Mind. Francis Schlatter and his 
Cures. A Peculiar Case. 

CHAPTER III. 

MIND AND MATTER. 

Control of the Mind over the Body. Charming away Warts. 
Lord Bacon. The King's Evil. The Stigmata. Hypnotism. 
Instances of Hypnotism. A Miraculous Cure in Moscow. 
Influence of Personality. Cataract. Microbes. The Peculiar 
People. A Wonderful Cure Investigated. "Christian Science" 
Claims and Deeds. 

CHAPTER IV. 

"christian science" healing. 
The Subjective Mind. Instances of Its Working. Two Classes of 
Ailments. Microbic Diseases. Nervous Derangements. Absent 
Treatment. Effect of Sympathy. Communication between 
Minds. Mind Reading. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DOCTRINE OF " CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 

The Sermon on the Mount. The Way of Salvation. Statement 
of " Christian Science/ ' 

CHAPTER VI. 

MAN. 

Mrs. Eddy's Meaning. Mortals and Mortal Minds the Creation 
of the Wicked One. Good and Evil. The Senses. Accurate 
Observation. Wickedness of Man. The Incarnation. The 
Divine Life. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE HOLY GHOST. 

The Ruler of this Dispensation. The Holy Ghost in the Bible : 
in Mrs. Eddy's book. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SPIRIT. 

Value of Terms. A Definition of Adam. Mrs. Eddy on Spirit. 
A False Syllogism. God is not all. Life and Spirit. Sub- 
stance. The Substance of the Body. The Resurrection. 
Body of Our Lord. Ether. The Vortex Theory. Ether and 
Matter. 

CHAPTER IX. 

FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Witnesses. The Christ Life. " Christian 
Science" and the Removal of Sin. The Divine Nature. The 
Teaching of "Christian Science" and the Gospel Contrasted. 

CHAPTER X. 

CONCLUSION. 

The Value of " Christian Science." The Truth in " Christian 
Science." The Practice of "Christian Science" Healing. 
Hypnotism and Therapeutics. 



CHAPTER I. 



ON HEALING. 



IN February of this year, 1896, "The Christian 
Scientists" of New York opened a building 
which they had purchased for $75,000. This was the 
occasion of a long article by one of their number in 
" The New York Tribune " descriptive of the prog- 
ress of the movement. The article said that already 
the sect had three hundred churches in the United 
States, and daily was increasing its number of adher- 
ents; that the particular congregation in New York 
was composed of eight hundred persons, all of whom 
had been cured of diseases more or less severe ; and 
the writer would point us to the facts of these and 
similar cures as the corroboration of the theory upon 
which the " Science " is based. This theory in its 
present statement is due to a lady who says it was 
revealed to her in 1865, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. 
She stated the theory in her book, " Science and 
Health, with Key to the Scriptures," which was pub- 
lished in 1875, and has gone through more than one 
hundred editions. 

It is not to be wondered at that so successful an 
authoress should have many imitators. To-day there 
are scores of books more or less diverging from the 
first opinions of Mrs. Eddy, and scores of teachers 



2 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

propagating all sorts of phases of " The Science of 
Spirit." Inasmuch as this professedly new revelation 
points to its works of healing as the proofs of its 
truth, it will be necessary to examine the question of 
healing generally, if possible to discover if its effi- 
cacy lies in any special theories, or in some principle 
inherent in human nature. 

We may at once divide the cures with which the 
world is familiar into two classes — those which are 
miraculous and those which are natural. By 
" miraculous " is meant that the cure was due to the 
interposition of a higher will, or by the employ- 
ment of powers which exist, though generally 
latent, in human beings, doing that which is not 
done in the ordinary course of nature. We often 
find it asserted that our Lord did his "mighty 
works " by those powers which it was intended 
humanity should possess, whereby the command of 
God should be carried out, and we should " subdue 
the earth. ' With the fall of man the sceptre of this 
power fell from our grasp. Occasionally, here and 
there, a man seemed to have recovered something of 
it, and our Lord re-possessed it in its fullness, and 
thereby worked his miracles. No doubt there is 
some truth in this; but He Himself declared that the 
Father had given Him works to do. "The Father 
that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works" — John 
xiv., 10. This is a plain statement that certain 
miracles, which He was then referring to, were done 
by the higher will interfering with the ordinary 
course of nature, and this is what we call a miracle. 
These works are always termed in the Greek "signs." 
Signs of what? Signs that the doer of them was 



ON HEALING. 3 

authorized by a power superior to the ordinary- 
course of nature. That these signs served their pur- 
pose Nicodemus is a witness. " No man," said he, 
"can do the miracles (signs) Thou doest except God 
be with him." Our Lord Himself appealed to his 
works in proof of the authority of his teaching: 
" Believe me for the very works' sake" — John xiv., n. 
He endowed his Apostles, in the first instance, with 
the same capability as He Himself possessed. As the 
"Christian Scientists" have taken the words of his 
commission as the motto around their seal, " Heal 
the Sick, Raise the Dead, Cleanse the Lepers, Cast 
out Demons," it is advisable to examine more closely 
this authority. It occurs in the charge given by our 
Lord to the Twelve Apostles, narrated in Matt, x., 6, 
etc. He is sending them to the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel. He forbids them to go into the way 
of the Gentiles; in order that attention might be 
gained for their message and their word be delivered 
with authority, He endues them with pow T er " to 
heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
out demons." It is clear that this power was a 
special gift for a special purpose, made to special 
men ; and unless it is asserted that the Lord in 
this " charge " to his chosen twelve intended to address 
through them all his followers of the centuries to 
come — an assertion no one would make — it cannot 
be maintained that we ordinary Christians can draw 
from these words any authority whatever to "heal 
the sick." 

The only other reference in the Gospels to this 
power is in the concluding paragraph of S. Mark's 
Gospel. These would appear to be the very last 



4 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT. " 

words our Lord uttered just before his ascension. 
He is speaking again to his Apostles, and He says : 
" Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the 
whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be con- 
demned. And these signs shall follow (accompany) 
them that believe. In my name they shall cast out 
devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 
take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing 
it shall in nowise hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
the sick, and they shall recover." 

The unbiased reader will at once conclude that 
our Lord in this statement did not in any sense 
declare that it was one of the prerogatives of his 
followers to be free from sickness, or that it was one 
of their duties in his name to "heal the sick." 
These powers are still spoken of as extraordinary ; 
they are still termed " signs ;" they stood as wit- 
nesses to declare the Divine nature of the message of 
the Gospel ; they were " to accompany those that 
believed," in order to convince the world that salva- 
tion had come. Before the canon of Scripture closed, 
these signs were exhibited again and again. We 
have no authorized record of any of the believers 
drinking without harm a poisoned cup — a common 
enough mode of murder in those days — but a legend 
relates how the life of S. John was thus attempted 
and how he escaped. S. Paul at Melita did shake off 
the viper, which had fastened on his hand, into the 
fire and took no harm, and what effect the "sign" 
had on the islanders S. Luke tells us. And if anyone 
still needs convincing that these powers were special 
gifts, not for the benefit of believers themselves, but 



ON HEALING. 5 

for the quicker spreading of the Gospel they were 
charged to propagate, it is conclusively stated by 
S. Paul in I. Cor. xiv._, 22. Referring to the speaking 
with new tongues, he writes: " Tongues are for a sign 
not to them that believe, but to them that believe 
not." That is, the gift was intended to attract the 
outside world, and give reason, to those who listened, 
to credit that the Gospel preached was not " of men, 
but of God." It was, in fact, the very accomplish- 
ment of what the Lord had promised, and what S. 
Mark himself thirty years afterward, with the events 
before him, stated in the final verse of his narrative : 
" And they went forth and preached everywhere, the 
Lord working with them and ratifying the Word by 
means of accompanying signs." Mark xvi., 20. 

That it was never intended that sickness should be 
banished from our lives, while in this state of proba- 
tion, but should be used, as all the other disabilities 
of our present state, for purposes of discipline and 
means by which we might forge our own characters, 
is very evident from the teachings of the Word of 
God. 

We are told, and observation amply corroborates 
the assertion, that the ruler of this world is that evil 
potentate, that adversary of our souls, the Devil. 
Our Blessed Lord called him " The Prince of this 
World." The temptations which waylaid the path of 
the Lord Himself are always ascribed to his malevo- 
lence. At the entrance of his public ministry He is 
led jnto the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. 
Matt, iv., 1. He is assaulted by temptations which 
were indicative of all " the contradictions of sin- 
ners against Himself." In the natural commisera- 



6 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

tion of the chief Apostle, when the Lord revealed to 
them how soon He must suffer, He heard the voice 
of the Arch-Tempter, and said to Peter: " Get thee 
behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things 
that be of God, but of men." And when his be- 
trayer, with the wine of the first sacrament upon his 
lips, went out into the night, to make his proposal to 
the Sanhedrim, the Evangelist records : " Now Satan 
having put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray 
him, he went out " — a corroboration of our Lord's own 
words, that although He had chosen the twelve, one 
of them was a devil. All through his career He 
looked upon the opposition He met with and the 
sorrows which oppressed people as due to "the envy 
of the devil." Wisdom ii., 24. 

To the head and front of the opposition, which 
finally compassed his death, He said: "Ye are of 
your father, the devil." In those days spirits of evil 
gained access to men's souls, and disputed with the 
man himself the governance of himself. These He 
"cast out," " suffering them not to speak, for they 
knew him." He even ascribed to their malevolence 
those infirmities of the body which elicited his pity. 
He said of the woman, the curvature of whose spine 
was such that she " could in nowise straighten herself," 
that it was Satan who had " bound her, lo! these 
eighteen years." Luke xiii., 16. Death itself He 
ascribed to satanic power. " I will forewarn you 
whom ye shall fear. Fear him who, after he hath 
killed the body, hath power to cast into hell : yea, I 
say unto you, fear him." Luke xii., 5. 

This terrible view of the condition of our life 
might be conjectured from the fact that our Lord 



ON HEALING. 7 

healed diseases and raised the dead. Because, if the 
sick were afflicted according to the will of God, and 
if it was the direct action of the will of God that 
death should come, how could our Lord have re- 
moved the sickness or recalled the dead ? He was 
the only man ever on earth who never ran counter to 
the will of God, and in that He did deliver the sick 
and the dead it is a proof that they were not smitten 
according to the will of God. It is, of course, true 
that no sparrow can fall to the ground without His 
high behest, but He allows the power of evil to act 
within certain limits, that we may have that very dis- 
cipline by which and through which we gain our 
liberty. 

A pertinent illustration of the relationship which 
the Almighty Father is pleased to maintain with the 
Prince of Evil is given to us in the matter of that 
" infirmity of the flesh " which S. Paul describes as 
"a messenger of Satan, sent to buffet him. " It was 
so poignant an affliction that the Apostle does not 
style it "a thorn in the flesh," but " a stake in the 
flesh." The iron entered into his soul, and to all 
appearance woefully restrained his usefulness. 

Now, S. Paul had in a pre-eminent degree the gift of 
healing. So full was he of " virtue," that handkerchiefs 
and aprons which had touched his body conveyed the 
healing property to the sick and made them well — 
Acts xix., 1 1. But the great Apostle had a serious view 
of the use of sickness, and so reverently did he regard 
it that he declined to restore his damaged eyesight — 
for this, no doubt, was his infirmity — himself. He 
therefore tells his Corinthian converts, that he be- 
sought the Lord thrice — II. Cor. xii., 7-10 — to heal 



8 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

his sickness, but the Divine assurance was, that it was 
better for him to bear its burden ; that grace was 
vouchsafed him to carry that cross. " My grace is 
sufficient for thee," was the reply. Now, in this case, it 
is unequivocally stated that his diseased eyes were 
due to satanic power, that this was permitted by 
the Lord, who could have removed the infirmity, in 
view of certain contingencies which might happen, 
and which would be sadly detrimental to S. Paul 
himself. Some of these he himself perceived. He 
tells us that this affliction was allowed to keep him 
humble, lest he "should be exalted above measure" 
because of " the abundance of the revelations " which 
had been vouchsafed to him. Lest that pride, which 
haunts us like our shadow, should arise within him 
and debase his character, it was necessary, even for 
him, that his weakness and dependence should be 
continually forced upon him. Looking at the cir- 
cumstances from our more distant point of view, we 
can see many more advantages which accrued from 
his sickness. The Galatian Church never would have 
been founded, Gal. iv., 13; we never should have 
had the Epistle to that Church; the intimacy between 
S. Paul and S. Luke would never have existed; and 
probably, therefore, we owe to the Apostle's sickness 
the Gospel of S. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles; 
and who shall say that the profundity of the Epistle 
to the Romans, the depth and energy of the Apostle's 
thought, are not to be ascribed to the fact that he 
was often obliged to sit in the dark, and being ever, 
more or less, denied the wide sight of the outer 
world, was compelled to turn the eye of his mind in 
introspective view; and so learned to commune with 



ON HEALING. 9 

himself. It was good for S. Paul, as it was for 
David, that he was afflicted. 

Before leaving the pages of the Book of Revelation 
and examining the power of healing as illustrated in 
secular history, we must refer to an example of the 
fact that it is possible for the determined human will 
to gain its desire, even although the answer to the 
prayer has not the Divine approval. 

It is quite possible, even probable, that S. Paul 
could have healed himself, without applying to the 
Divine Counsellor. S. James leads us to conclude 
that the famine in Israel and the demonstration on 
Mount Carmel were the result of the stalwart faith 
of Elijah, " a man of like passions as we are." Not 
only did no good result come from his bringing force 
to bear upon the multitude, but at Horeb God Him- 
self taught his faithful servant that " it was not by 
might, nor by power, but by my spirit," saith the 
Lord, that men's minds and hearts are influenced. 
The wind, the fire, the earthquake, had no effect on 
the prophet himself. It was " the still small voice " 
of a present personality which bowed him down; and 
then the command came to him to cease to attempt 
to move masses, but to deal personally with indi- 
viduals — Jehu, Hazael, Elisha. 

God has been pleased to place great honor on the 
human will. To it has He committed the reception 
of the gift of eternal life. With such puissance has 
He invested it, that in its prerogative has He placed 
the possession or the non-possession of the Holy 
Ghost, the Lord and Life Giver. The will of man 
can withstand the omnipotence of Almighty God. 
Even the Lord of Lords cannot enter in and take 



10 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

possession of a man's heart unless the will of the 
man open unto Him. It is, therefore, not a thing 
to be wondered at that, in deference to the will He 
Himself has so honored, God does sometimes ac- 
quiesce in that the consequences of which we cannot 
call good. In other words, it is quite within the 
capability of men to throw down the crosses He has 
apportioned for them to bear, and rid themselves, by- 
sheer force of will or wealth of resource, of those 
disabilities which, if borne with patience, would have 
worked out for them an eternal weight of glory. Of 
this we have a striking example given us in the 
history of Hezekiah. 

After a life of faithfulness, and brilliant with 
many signal instances of the favor of the Lord, the 
great Prophet Isaiah is sent with a message to the 
king: " Set thine house in order, for thou shalt 
die and not live." Had Hezekiah received this 
direct word from God as a wonderful assurance of 
his eternal safety, had he counted himself well rid of 
this naughty world and now certain of passing into 
Abraham's bosom, had he received the summons joy- 
fully and committed his soul unto God as unto a 
faithful creator, he would have departed in peace. 
But instead of this, he " turned his face to the wall 
and wept sore," and in an agony prayed that God 
would spare his life and lengthen his days. While 
still on his way, " in the midst of the city," before he 
had reached his own house, Isaiah is commanded to 
return to the palace to announce to the king that his 
prayer was granted, and that God would add fifteen 
years to his life. Perhaps we may venture to think 
that the Lord, who " trieth the heart," knew that the 



ON HEALING. 11 

discipline of life had done what it could for Hezekiah's 
character, and that there were, in the future, occasions 
of temptation likely to arise under whose strain his 
faith would give way, so that it would be better for 
him to be "taken from the evil to come." Isaiah, 
lvii., i. It is significant that the trial of his faith, in 
believing the truth of the reprieve, was remarkably 
shortened, " On the third day thou shalt go up 
unto the house of the Lord;" and wonderfully sup- 
ported by a sign from heaven, the Lord " brought 
the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had 
gone down in the dial of Ahaz." II. Kings 

XX., II. 

In a very short time the weak place in his character 
was exposed. The writer of the Chronicles tells us 
that " Hezekiah rendered not again according to the 
benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up." 
It was the natural rebound from the ever-present 
thought of that fifteenth year. He said in his thanks- 
giving prayer for his recovery: "I shall go softly all 
my years, in the bitterness of my soul." Isaiah 
xxxviii., 15. He was not the sort of man who could 
brace his spirit to watch the sure approach of death, 
not only with calmness, but with triumph. The fear 
of death had evidently great terror for him. There- 
fore, by every device, he thrust from the sight of his 
mind the unwelcome thought. This constant atti- 
tude induced a sort of braggadocio, a devil-may- 
care temperament, which is the other alternative in 
the face of a great danger. Under such a pressure 
a man is either softened or hardened. That Heze- 
kiah might know himself it was that Berodach- 
baladan, King of Babylon, was instigated to send to 



12 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

Jerusalem an embasage of princes, bearing con- 
gratulations and a present. The ancient chronicler 
puts it with graphic insight: " Howbeit in the busi- 
ness of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, 
who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was 
done in the land, God left him to try him, that He 
might know all that was in his heart. " II. Chron- 
icles xxxii., 31. 

It is certainly a corroboration of this narrative that 
Herodotus found that during the 11,000 years in 
which the Egyptian priests said they had kept 
meteorological records, they had noted that the sun 
had twice gone backwards, which agrees with the 
two occasions mentioned in the Old Testament. 

It is clear that the king was not alone in his proud 
attitude, but his court, and indeed the whole city, put 
on airs. To give their visitors the impression trrat 
they were a rich and mighty people they displayed 
all their valuables and dilated on the great sign, to 
intimate that even the very sun in heaven attended 
to their wishes ; and in consequence we read that 
" the wrath of the Lord came upon him and upon 
Judah and Jerusalem. " Not only might they have 
escaped this calamity had their king been safe in 
Paradise, but another serious event would never 
have come to pass. In the third year after his re- 
covery his son Manasseh was born. The fifteenth 
year duly arrived, Hezekiah died, and Manasseh, at 
the age of twelve, succeeded him. He reigned fifty- 
five years. There was no species of wickedness he did 
not revel in. He built altars to the host of heaven 
in the very courts of the temple of the Lord. " He 
made his son pass through the fire and observed 



ON HEALING. 13 

times and used enchantments and dealt with fam- 
iliar spirits and wizards ; he wrought much wicked- 
ness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to 
anger ; ... he seduced them to do more evil 
than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed 
before the children of Israel. Moreover, Manasseh 
shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled 
Jerusalem from one end to another." Can we 
wonder that the Lord said He would bring " such 
evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever 
heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle"? — II. Kings 
xxl, 16. And all this came upon them in natural 
sequence, because a man would be rid of sickness 
and would not acquiesce in the w T ill of the Lord, that 
it was time for him to die. 

Every student of Christianity can cite instances 
where the purely human will demanded of God the 
recovery of some loved one, and the prayer, to 
their bitter regret, was granted. Out of many 
with which I am personally cognizant I cite 
one. 

Some connections of my own, wealthy people, 
lived at Sydenham, near London. No children had 
fallen to the household for several years, when a 
baby boy was born, and appropriately christened 
Benjamin. When two years old little Bennie was 
seized with meningitis. The most eminent of the 
London physicians were summoned, consultation 
after consultation was held, but it was evident, even 
to the non-medical eye, that the child must die, and 
this was the verdict. An eminent ecclesiastic, now 
gone to his rest, told me he was in the room. He 
saw the mother, a woman of great piety, open the 



14 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

large Bible on the table, and finding the Lord's 
promise in Mark xi., 24, " What things soever ye 
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, 
and ye shall have them," kneeling down, she placed 
her finger on the verse, and, to use his own words, 
"The room literally shook with the vigor of her 
demand for the life of her boy." 

Her prayer was answered; the child did not die. 
But he remained in the condition in which the dis- 
ease had been arrested sixteen years ! For sixteen 
years he lay, a baby in his cradle, and the intimates 
of the household used to go into the nursery to see 
"little Bennie." It was said he recognized his mother, 
but gave no other sign of intelligence. At the end 
of those long sixteen years the mother was glad and 
thankful to have him go to the Father's home ! 

It has ever appeared to reasonable people a strange 
thing to deny to the God above us that power which 
we ourselves possess. We can arrest the processes of 
nature, and by our will interfere with what appear 
universal laws. We walk upright, defiant of the law 
of gravity. Then why should not either God's will, 
if so He deem fit, or even man's will, if so capable, 
avert in certain cases what appear to be sure conse- 
quences ? After all, is it not merely the superimposi- 
tion of a higher and more potent force? 

The cure of sickness is lawful if the heart be in 
willing subservience to the mind of God. We have 
seen how dangerous it is to heal the sick without 
reference to Him who alone knows what is in us and 
what lies before us. Few people can doubt that the 
power of will to hold us in health is one of the means 
God has placed at our disposal to enable us to deal 



ON HEALING. 15 

with the difficulties of life. But, like all other 
powers, it is intrusted to us to use only for his 
service and in his honor. 

But to say that man's mission is to sweep out of his 
path every disability, and that he has commission 
from the Master to everywhere " heal the sick," is a 
dangerous doctrine, and subversive of the very occa- 
sion of our life. And its contradiction is positive, by 
the failure in the majority of cases where it is at- 
tempted by those who are so deluded as to believe it. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON HEALING. 

IT has naturally been the desire of every generation 
to heal its sick. Sickness is not a pleasant 
experience, and, as it not seldom leads to death, the 
sympathies of the sick as well as those of their im- 
mediate friends are keenly awakened, one and all, 
from every consideration, are filled with anxiety to 
see the sick one cured. 

Nothing makes us realize the weakness of the 
human arm more than an attack of sickness. The 
disease holds its way, as a giant striding amongst 
pigmies. Is it any wonder, then, that in every 
generation men have obeyed the worshipping instinct 
of our nature and appealed to the unseen power? 

The wealth of the temples of the ancient world was 
chiefly from votive offerings of those who believed 
the god had cured them or theirs, of some ill to which 
flesh is heir. Evidence could be gleaned from every 
classic writer of sacred places famed in his time for 
the healing properties they possessed. 

Strabo records the marvelous reputation gained in 
his day by a temple of the Egyptian god, Serapis, 
which was situated at Canopus, and was reached 
from Alexandria by canal. He says that eminent 
persons from all parts of the world congregated 



ON HEALING. 17 

there to be healed; that so great was the number of 
pilgrims that the canal was filled with boats going 
and returning. 

There never was a shrine or holy well that had not 
tales to tell of, and usually an assortment of crutches 
and sticks to witness to, the cures performed by its 
relic or its holy water. 

In our day we have the truly wonderful sights at 
Lourdes. A peasant girl declared the Blessed Virgin 
had appeared to her. Her story was credited by 
some, disbelieved by others. People went to see the 
girl and the place, cures began to be effected, and 
now there is a splendid church and its accompani- 
ments ; and every year not only are great pilgrimages 
organized, but " The White Train " passes through 
France and collects on its way one thousand incur- 
ables, who are attended by devotees of the highest 
rank. Out of these one thousand, two hundred are 
cured. There is no chicanery about this. A com- 
mittee of medical men of all shades of opinions and 
beliefs examine these cases before and after the use 
of the water, and in numberless instances have ex- 
pressed themselves satisfied of the genuineness of the 
cure. 

But does anybody believe that such cures establish 
the reality of the existence of the gods of ancient 
mythology? Or the genuineness of the relics of the 
saints ? Or that the Blessed Virgin really did appear 
to the French peasant girl ? Whatever the power of 
the cure may be, it is evident that in these cases it 
resided in the subjects themselves, and not in the 
object of veneration. It was subjective, and not 
objective. 



18 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

Before we attempt to illustrate the effect that the 
mind has over our bodies, we must notice the case of 
a healing power which is possessed by some persons. 
S. Paul distinctly tells us that there is " a gift of 
healing." Our Blessed Lord had it in its fullness. 
" The whole multitude sought to touch Him ; for there 
went virtue out of Him and healed them all " — Luke 
vii., 19; and when the woman in the crowd touched the 
hem of his garment, unknown to Him, He immediately 
was cognizant of the craving touch, for He said: "I 
perceive that virtue has gone out of me." How far 
the Lord and his Apostles were endued with this 
gift, and how far their works were the offspring of 
" power from on high," it is impossible to say. But 
there is no doubt whatever that, apart from religious 
belief, or at least independent of it, many persons 
have a force which is strengthening and health- 
giving. There are clergymen of whom it is said that 
the sick infants they baptize almost invariably re- 
cover, and everyone knows of persons whose presence 
in the sick-room is welcomed, and who, by a touch or 
stroke of the hand, seem to revive the invalid. It is 
the habit to ascribe to imagination, if not to imposi- 
tion, the healings of men who in every generation 
have gained celebrity for the cures they have 
wrought; therefore there is little disposition to seri- 
ously examine their claims. 

Francis Schlatter is a case in point. In the fall of 
last year he attracted in this city of Denver thou- 
sands of persons, who passed before him for eight or 
ten hours every day. Whatever may have been his 
own religious belief, he made no exaction on the faith 
of others, and of some of the cures he wrought it 



ON HEALING. 19 

must be admitted that the curative power came from 
him, and was not excited in the patient. Let three 
cases which came under my own observation suffice : 

The cook of one of our oldest residents, in lifting 
a piano eight years ago, ruptured herself. She 
suffered many things of many physicians, and was 
not cured. Often she was unable to work, and 
although, of course, she wore a truss, was frequently 
in great pain. Moreover, her eyesight became im- 
paired. She could not see to thread a needle, and 
could not even sew by gaslight. The second day 
Schlatter was here she was in the long line which 
approached him. She is a Swede, and, after the 
manner of her countrywomen, very taciturn. She 
never spoke to him, nor he to her. She heard what 
he said to otners. He held her hand. She said as 
he did so she felt she was cured. 

On returning home she took off her truss. I saw 
her six weeks afterward, and again in six months 
To use her own words, she said she was "a well 
woman." Moreover, her eyes regained their wonted 
strength. She remained apparently in perfect health; 
at least, she did her work without interruption, her 
mistress tells me, until a little time ago she left to 
revisit her native land. 

Schlatter never would receive any remuneration, 
although it was said as much as $500 was offered him 
in one fee. 

Now, contrast this with a parallel case. A lady in 
my congregation is afflicted in the same way. Find- 
ing she was not cured by ordinary treatment, she 
was persuaded to consult a "Christian Science" 
healer. This person, after many treatments, as- 



20 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

sured her she was cured — indeed, that " the pain, the 
lump, the discomfort, were all the illusions of 
'mortal mind,' and had no real existence; she 
might go home and discard her truss." Which she 
foolishly did, and was only saved next day by pro- 
longed medical effort from having to undergo the 
operation for strangulated hernia. She had paid the 
" scientist " $50. 

Another precisely similar case occurred with an- 
other lady of my congregation. She consulted a 
" healer," who treated her every day for six weeks. 
On leaving for Florida, the "Christian Scientist" 
proposed to give her " absent treatments" at the 
same rate of charge. But when on the train, at one 
of the "set times," she, too, was on the point of des- 
perate trouble. The movements consequent on travel 
had, of course, brought down the hernia, and it 
became strangulated, and it was only " reduced " at 
the cost of great suffering. 

But to return to Schlatter, to show that healings 
are possible without any dependence on any theory 
whatever. I know a boy of ten, who had hip disease 
for more than two years before Schlatter came. The 
disease so increased that the poor little fellow could 
only lie on the floor on his right side, so propped by 
pillows that he could not turn over in his sleep. He 
went to the healer, who told him that in two months 
it was God's will that he should be well, and from 
that time he began rapidly to amend. A large lump 
gathered, but painlessly. It then broke, freely dis- 
charged, and then the place permanently healed. 
The boy has abandoned his crutches, and his leg, 
though of course deformed, has no sign of disease 



ON HEALING. 21 

about it; and it is a year since the " healer " was 
here. 

A third and last case is that of a young man I 
have known ten years. His digestion was so feeble 
that at length even the milk and bread he was 
reduced to live upon, had to be removed by the 
stomach pump whenever he was seized with a species 
of convulsion, which he well described as " the blind 
staggers. " His father being the manager of one of 
our chief daily papers, and his mother most active 
in all charitable undertakings, he had every medical 
attention, and in spite of all endeavors he gradually 
neared his grave. I often saw him, and he was a 
cause of great anxiety to us all. He went to see 
Schlatter, and from that hour he began to amend. 
In a few weeks he could eat anything; his whole 
system seemed changed. So thankful was he that 
he became Schlatter's attendant, and held the hand- 
kerchiefs and cloths brought to be blessed. Schlatter 
pressed them between his hands for a few minutes, 
and many persons whom I have questioned declared 
that when applied to the body they reddened and 
drew the skin as a mustard plaster would. When I 
first heard this I derided the idea, or conceived it to 
be another illustration of the power of mind over 
body. But both my young friend and his mother 
have many evidences to give, which it is difficult to 
gainsay, as to the singular effect which they both 
experienced themselves and witnessed on the persons 
of other people when these " blessed " cloths were 
applied. 

The general opinion of those who were intimately 
concerned with this singular man is that five per cent. 



22 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHTS 

of those who sought his aid were materially bene- 
fited. He himself ascribed the cures to faith in God, 
which he continually urged. His appearance, very 
spiritual and distrait, greatly assisted the earnest- 
ness of his appeal, and no doubt largely contributed 
to the effect. 

In the " British and Foreign Medical Review," 
January, 1847, is given a series of cases communi- 
cated by a naval surgeon of long standing. This 
illustration of the astonishing effect of mind over 
body will render credible the above instance of 
Schlatter's success : 

11 A very intelligent officer had suffered for some 
years from violent attacks of cramps in the stomach. 
He had tried almost all the remedies usually recom- 
mended for the relief of this distressing affection, 
and for a short period prior to coming under my care 
the trisnitrate of bismuth had been attended with the 
best results. The attacks came on about once in 
three weeks, or from that to a month, unless when 
any unusual exposure brought them on more fre- 
quently. As the bismuth had been useful it, of 
course, was continued; but notwithstanding that it 
was increased to the largest dose that its poisonous 
qualities would justify, it soon lost its effect. Seda- 
tives were again applied to ; but the relief afforded 
by these was only partial, while their effect on the 
general system was very prejudicial. On one occa- 
sion, while greatly suffering from the effect of some 
preparation of opium, given for the relief of these 
spasms, he was told that on the next attack he would 
be put under a medicine which was generally believed 
to be most effective, but which was rarely used because 



ON HEALING. 23 

of its dangerous qualities; but that, notwithstanding 
these, it would be tried, provided he gave his assent. 
This he did willingly. Accordingly, on the first 
attack after this, a powder containing four grains of 
ground biscuit was administered every seven minutes, 
while the greatest anxiety was expressed (within the 
hearing of the patient) lest too much should be given. 
" The fourth dose caused an entire cessation of pain. 
Half-drachm doses of bismuth had never procured 
the same relief in less than three hours. For four 
successive times did the same kind of attack recur, 
and four times it was met by exactly the same remedy 
with like success. After this he joined another ship." 



CHAPTER III. 



MIND AND MATTER. 



TURNING now to the control the mind has over 
the body, we have within our reach a mass of 
evidence which goes far to prove, that, thought of any 
given bodily change tends to the actual production in the 
body of the change that thought suggests. 

This statement need not give us any great surprise, 
if we consider that the body must be secreted by the 
soul, if by soul we mean the human vitality be- 
queathed to us by our parents. 

Unless we are prepared to admit that the soul 
gathers to itself and places in their proper position 
particles of matter, thus building for itself an organ- 
ism for its own habitation and for the transaction of 
its business in this material world, unless we admit 
that the soul thus constructs the body, how are we 
to account for that family likeness which strangely 
blends the characteristics of both father and mother? 
The soul must have a form, and surely it is not 
beyond our right to presume that, when disem- 
bodied, we shall still retain our present appearance ? 
We cannot admit that the body gives form to the soul. 
It is evident that the soul determines the form of the 
body, and, if so, then it is no wonder that the altera- 
tion of the soul intimately affects the body. That it 



MIND AND MATTER. 25 

does so is beyond question. Even after the body has 
attained its full growth and the appearance of the 
face has become fixed, let a change occur in the 
nature of the man — let him become spiritually 
minded, or even let him have his intelligence stimu- 
lated, and everyone will mark his altered appear- 
ance. We say he is a changed man. 

It is not a mere alteration of muscular setting of 
which the mind is capable. It will cause actual 
change in the fabric of the body. A fright has been 
known to whiten the hair ; a feeling will blanch or 
will redden the face ; let anyone concentrate his 
thought on the tip of any of his fingers, and it will 
begin to tingle, because the blood is being drawn to 
that spot. This important fact was noted by no less 
a medical authority than John Hunter. He writes : 
" I am confident that I can fix my attention to any 
part until I have a sensation in that part." Anxiety 
will take away appetite, which means that those 
juices essential to digestion are arrested, and the 
stomach, unprepared to receive food, intimates its 
disinclination for it. On the other hand, a happy, 
buoyant spirit is at once the cause and the effect of a 
good digestion. 

But there is a class of evidence which is more 
inexplicable. Who of us has not in childhood 
had our warts charmed away ? The modus operandi 
of the charmer was always to make the occasion very 
solemn; then the mind was adroitly drawn to the 
obtrusive wart; it was to be rubbed with half an 
onion, whose other moiety was to be buried in the 
churchyard exactly one hour after sunset, or some 
other mysterious treatment was prescribed, and the** 



26 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

with the assurance that the wart would disappear 
that day fortnight, the patient was dismissed; but 
the mind had been riveted on that wart, and its 
effect was to banish the intruder; and, what is more 
curious, no one seems to have noticed the decay of 
the wart, but suddenly it was found gone ! 

On this curious, but very suggestive experience, 
we have a narrative by no less a person than my 
Lord Chancellor Bacon. " I had from childhood," 
he says, " a wart upon one of my fingers; afterwards, 
when I was about sixteen years old, being then in 
Paris, there grew upon both my hands a number of 
warts, at the least a hundred, in a month's space. 
The English Ambassador's lady, who was a woman 
far from superstitious, told me one day she would 
help me away with my warts; whereupon she got a 
piece of lard, with the skin on, and rubbed the warts 
all over with the fat side, and among the rest that 
wart I had had from my childhood; then she nailed the 
piece of lard, with the fat towards the sun, upon a 
post of her chamber window, which was to the south. 
The success was that within five weeks' space all the 
warts went away, and that wart I had so long en- 
dured for company. But at the rest I did little 
marvel, because they came in a short time and might 
go away in a short time again; but the going away of 
that which had stayed so long doth yet stick with 
me. 

It is very venturesome to suggest to such a man 
that he had forgotten anything, but no doubt the 
Ambassador's lady told him that as the sun melted 
the lard so would the warts disappear! The boy's 
mind was by many circumstances fixed on the warts, 



MIND AND MATTER. 27 

the grand lady, the foreign city, the bit of lard, and 
not improbably the evident association between 
lard and Bacon. The " suggestion " worked, and the 
warts vanished ! 

In the time of the Stuarts, " touching for the * King's 
Evil'" was one of the regular duties of the king. 
There must have been numerous cases where the 
scrofula was actually removed, not by the touch of 
the king's finger, but by the effect of the powerfully 
directed mind to the affected gland. 

There are on record some ninety cases of the 
stigmata, the marks of the nails and the spear-thrust 
in our Lord's body, appearing on persons deeply 
religious. Many of these cases are established be- 
yond question. 

S. Francis Assissi, the founder of the Franciscan 
Order of monks, was the first in whom the stigmata 
were said to be visible, both before and after his 
death. 

In the next century, the fourteenth, the rival 
order, the Dominicans, gloried in the exhibition by 
S. Catherine of Sienna of the same marks; but there 
must have been some doubts as to the reality of the 
appearances, for in 1475 Pope Sixtus IV. published a 
bull ordering the erasure of the stigmata from all the 
pictures of S. Catherine. But, despite the infallibil- 
ity of the Pope, this may not be taken as conclusive 
evidence that this hysterical girl of twenty-three had 
not the stigmata. The rivalry between the Francis- 
cans and Dominicans was something indescribable, 
and it is quite possible the bull of the Pope did not 
altogether turn on the cogency of the evidence. 

If later years had not supplied us with unquestion- 



28 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

able instances of marks on the skin coming at the in- 
stigation of the will, abnormally directed, we might be 
inclined to believe that the origin of the stigmata in 
every case might be naturally accounted for, and not 
seldom be traced to the act of the persons themselves. 
Hysterical patients are singularly adroit, and will 
inflict wounds upon themselves to induce that sym- 
pathy for which they crave with more desperate 
yearning than the toper for his dram. 

An hysterical girl once confessed to me that she 
herself had thrust a needle down to the bone in her 
arm, in order that a doctor, she had leanings to, 
might cut it out, and the rest of us have our sym- 
pathy excited. This girl could cause hemorrhages 
when she chose, and completely deceived some of our 
best physicians. When she lost the power she used 
carmine dye, and was of course discovered. 

The reader is referred to the article on " Somatiz- 
ation " in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where is given 
the case of Louise Lateau, a peasant girl in Hainault, 
upon whom the stigmata appeared in 1868. Her case 
was investigated by Professor Lefebvre, of Louvain, 
who was for fifteen years the physician of two lunatic 
asylums, and therefore not likely to be deceived by an 
hysterical girl, and he wrote an account of the phe- 
nomenon, which was published at Louvain in 1870. 

We have lately had revived interest in hypnotism, 
the modern name for mesmerism. Many surgical 
operations have been performed on favorable sub- 
jects without pain when mesmerized. This is by no 
means improbable, because it is evident that by mes- 
merism the mind of the subject is diverted from the 
ordinary channel of its operations, and by that curi- 



MIND AND MATTER. 29 

ous control, at present called "suggestion," is so 
intently fixed elsewhere that it gives no heed to 
ordinary demands on its attention. That such a 
mental condition is perfectly possible is amply 
proved by the well-authenticated instances of sol- 
diers being wounded during the awful excitement of 
a battle, and never being conscious of the pain which 
the passage of the bullet must have caused, only dis- 
covering the wound after the action. 

This peculiar mental phenomenon is the true 
explanation of many of the cures of "Christian 
Science." Mrs. Eddy, being quite aware that mes- 
merism was a powerful rival to her claims, is un- 
measured in her denunciation of it. Here is one, out 
of many, of her onslaughts, that is so palpably the 
writing of a frightened woman that it is impossible 
to restrain a smile to see her volubly denounce and 
yet at once admit the potency of her rival : 

Mesmerism is the right hand of Humbug, and is either 
delusion or fraud. When first teaching mental science I per- 
mitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that this could 
harm or hinder the spiritual direction of thought. . . . By 
thorough examination I learned that manipulation hinders, 
instead of helps, mental healing. It establishes a mesmeric 
connection between patient and practitioner, and so gives the 
latter more opportunity to influence the thoughts and actions of 
the former in whatever direction he may choose, and some- 
times with error instead of truth Mesmeric influ- 
ence is not confined to manipulation, but is employed variously, 
and becomes the subtle agent of the worst crimes that mortals 
can commit. — "Science and Health," pp. 197-415, 74th Edition. 

This is a real and dreadful power to reside in " the 
right hand of Humbug!" This is no "imaginary 
power." 



30 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

But if mesmerism can produce an actual alteration 
of the skin, it can also cause material changes in 
unseen organs, and put right that which has become 
disordered. 

In the proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
Research, vol. vii., p. 339, quoted in a late number of 
the "Popular Science Monthly " by Professor New- 
bold, there are related several cases in which medical 
men, by means of mesmeric suggestion, caused upon 
the persons of their subjects marks and crosses to 
appear and disappear at stated times. One of them, 
Dr. Biggs, mesmerized his housemaid, and said to 
her : " Now, listen attentively ; a cross is going to 
appear on your right forearm and remain there until 
I tell it to go away. Here is where it is to appear." 
He then marked a cross with his forefinger on the 
inner side of her right forearm. " Have you under- 
stood what I said to you ?" The mesmerized girl 
replied, " Yes." He then awakened her. For the 
next two or three days she seemed sulky and out of 
sorts, and would now and then rub her arm where 
the cross was to appear. She said she did so because 
there was an itching, although there was as yet no 
appearance of irritation. He then mesmerized her 
again and asked, "Do you recollect what I told you 
the other day about the cross that is to appear on 
your forearm ?" " Yes." " Will it appear ?" " Yes." 
"When?" "In a few days." " Well, it must come 
out in three days. Do you understand me?" "Yes." 
By the time appointed a dusky red cross made its 
appearance. Never a word had been said to her 
about the cross in her waking moments, and she 
kept it as much as possible out of sight, but the end 



MIND AND MATTER. 31 

of it could be occasionally seen below her sleeve. It 
was often examined by putting her to sleep. Seeing 
it one day the doctor said, " Why, Maria, what is the 
matter with your arm ? Have you hurt it ? What 
mark is this ? Let me see. Pull up your sleeve." 
She did so, with a slightly sulky, ashamed air. 
"Why, it looks like a cross. Where did you get 
this?" "I don't know, sir." "How long has this 
been on your arm?" "More than a month, sir." 
"Have you felt anything?" " No, sir ; only at one 
time I had a great deal of itching and burning, and 
a few days afterwards this mark came on my arm." 
The cross continued many months after she had left 
the doctor's service, and it only disappeared upon her 
calling on her late master to remove it, which he did 
by mesmerizing her and telling her, while asleep, that 
the cross would disappear in a few days, which it did. 
This capability of the mind, in the peculiar hyp- 
notic state, of producing an actual alteration of the 
flesh is no doubt the explanation of the appearance 
of the stigmata. These persons, usually girls, of 
the ninety cases recorded by Roman Catholic au- 
thorities seventy-two were females and only eighteen 
males, became by the contemplation of the crucifix 
mesmerized. The one great idea upon their minds, 
before they went into the hypnotic condition, was the 
wounds of the Crucified One. The seclusion of their 
lives; the one topic of their conversation; their en- 
vironment, all contributed to direct and impress the 
thought. The pardonable anxiety to be so honored 
as "to bear in the body the marks of the Lord 
Jesus," not a little stimulated by the notoriety which 
the event would secure for themselves and their 



32 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

community, all tended to subscribe the conditions 
essential for the effect, and so it came to pass. 

The modus operandi of the " Christian Scientist" 
healer is to all intents and purposes that of the hyp- 
notist. By the silence, the motionless sitting, the 
subdued voice, the cabalistic sentences — for they are 
senseless, and cannot excite the intelligence — the 
mind is soothed; then the suggestion is given, and in 
the denial of disease the repeated assertion of par- 
ticular cure is pointedly made and impressed; thus 
directed, the mind exercises its power, all too little 
used, of stimulating nerval action, and so inducing in 
the tissues the change which the thought desires. 
This is probably the explanation of these cures. 

This widespread belief seems to be the rebound of 
the mind of humanity from that abject materialism 
the first heralds of awakening science sought, half a 
century ago, to impose upon us. It is possible to 
gain a hearing now, for the effect of the unseen, and 
to believe that there are causes of visible results 
which lie beyond the pale of the tangible. Publica- 
tions which only a few years ago would have refused 
to notice any account of cures beyond the limits of 
what they termed medical science, do so no longer. 

The "British Medical Journal" of November 16, 
1895, contains this account of a cure beyond the 
explanation of the profession : 

"A ' miraculous' cure has recently occurred in 
Moscow, where it has caused considerable excite- 
ment. It is, perhaps, a more than usually interesting 
instance, and therefore deserving of the permanent 
record given to it by Professor Kozhevnikoff. . . . 
The patient was a lecturer in the Moscow University. 



MIND AND MATTER. 33 

He had suffered from a severe form of sycosis menti, 
(eruption of the hair follicles on the chin) since 
June, 1894. He had visited Vienna, Berlin, Buda- 
Pesth, Kieff, and other places, seeking the best advice. 
In April last he returned to Moscow. His chin was 
then covered with a freshly suppurating eruption. 
He now sought the advice of a ' wise woman/ who 
was an attendant at the baths, and was in the habit 
of giving herbs and i simples ' to her clients. In this 
case no such remedy was employed. He was told to 
meet the woman next morning at five o'clock in the 
Temple of the Saviour, the colossal church on the 
Moskva River, which has been building all the cen- 
tury and is yet incomplete, in memory of the famous 
events of 1812. He came as told, and while he re- 
mained a passive onlooker the woman prayed for 
three or four minutes. The same thing was repeated 
that evening, and again the following morning. But 
in the meantime the eruption on his face had begun 
to improve; the discharge ceased, the swelling sub- 
sided, and in twenty-four hours scarcely a sign of the 
disease was left. Such are the facts as given by the 
patient himself, and confirmed by Professor Kozhev- 
nikofT. ,, 

Some other details were added, showing that the 
patient was of an impressionable, perhaps hysterical 
temperament; that the woman used a cabalistic 
prayer, which she would not reveal. The time, the 
surroundings were all favorable, and the result was, 
no doubt, due to the power of the mind, when pro- 
perly directed, upon a body in a recipient condition. 

This " force " is far more frequently put into use 
than is recognized. Dr. Carpenter, in his " Nature 



34 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

and Man," has this paragraph: "Every medical man 
of large experience is well aware how strongly the 
patient's undoubting faith in the efficacy of a par- 
ticular remedy or mode of treatment assists its 
action; and when the doctor is himself animated by 
such a faith he has the more power of exciting it in 
others. A simple prediction, without any remedial 
measure, will sometimes work its own fulfillment. 
Thus Sir James Paget tells of a case in which he 
strongly impressed upon a woman, having a slug- 
gish, non-malignant tumor in the breast, that this 
tumor would disperse within a month or six weeks; 
and so it did. He perceived this patient's nature to 
be one on which the assurance would act favorably, 
and no one could more earnestly and effectively 
enforce it. On the other hand, a fixed belief on the 
part of the patient that a mortal disease has seized 
upon the frame, or that a particular operation or 
system of treatment will prove unsuccessful, seems 
in numerous instances to have been the real occasion 
of fatal result." 

The mere presence of some medical men has a far 
more curative effect than their prescriptions, because 
of the impetus their strong personality gives to the 
will of the patient, which beneficially reacts upon 
that ever ready disposition of nature to repair damage 
and restore to their proper working any disordered 
functions. 

The cases thus far cited are all of a kind which 
it is conceivable that nerval energy might control. 
The rupture of the Swedish cook may have been 
partially mended by nature, for three membranes 
must be torn before the actual rupture occurs, and 



MIND AND MATTER. 35 

the impetus given to her nervous force by the expec- 
tation engendered by her contact with the healer 
and his surroundings may have greatly strengthened 
and accelerated the healing process. 

The recovery of the use of her eyesight is to be 
certainly ascribed to the same cause. We hear 
sometimes of persons being cured by this class of 
healers of loss of sight. " The blind receive their 
sight!" has often been the exulting cry of " Christian 
Scientists " when lauding their cult as a new revela- 
tion. Many apparent diseases of the eye are due to 
lapse of nerval force. If we all lived long enough we 
should probably all suffer from cataract, which is the 
clouding of the crystalline lens. If the life has its 
full vigor, the secretions which form that lens are 
transparent, but if the controlling force becomes 
enfeebled, then the deposited material is not clear, 
the lens gradually becomes opaque, and we say a 
cataract is formed. There is no evidence, however, 
that the opaque lens ever has become again clear. 
But sometimes the opaqueness may occur in the 
cornea, the clear material which glazes the pupil. 
This, by an unskilled doctor, is frequently confounded 
with cataract, and this cloudiness does become 
clear again by invigorating the constitution. It is 
quite possible, therefore, to conceive this ailment 
being removed by the impetus imparted by an awak- 
ened will, under the application of the methods of 
"Christian Science," or other similar modes of treat- 
ment. So it is of deafness. All the apparatus of 
hearing may be in perfect condition, but if the nerves 
are lazy and decline to carry the impressions from 
the ear to the brain, nothing is heard, and the person 



36 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

is deaf. But now let some impetus be supplied to 
the flow of nerval force, and the deaf hear ! 

The same sort of consideration may be applied 
to rheumatism and dyspepsia, and many of those 
ailments from which women suffer. In all these 
cases there is no actual change in the construction of 
the muscles or organs, but their normal action is 
impeded either by the lack of some necessary secre- 
tion, or, as in the case of rheumatism, by the want of 
the removal of effete matter. In such cases will- 
power and nerval stimulants may remove the dis- 
ability and restore to health. We may call it nerval 
force, or will-power, or what we like, but we all know 
it is a veritable factor in maintaining the perfect 
working of the body. 

Of late years we have learned that many diseases 
are due to the agency of life. Microbes infest us; they 
float in the air; they inhabit, in whole colonies, dollar 
bills; they congregate on our clothing; they are every- 
where. Then why is it they do not so find residence 
in all of us as to produce constant diseases? Several 
persons are exposed to the same infection. Why is 
it that only one of the number takes the disease ? 
" Because the others were not susceptible," is the usual 
answer. This probably is due to their nerval condi- 
tion at the time. Experience has long shown that in 
the morning hours, before the work of the day has 
taxed the nerval energy, infection has less effect. 
As medical students we were not allowed to visit the 
fever wards unless quite well, and in the morning. 
Then, if this be the case, anything which is liable to 
nerve the constitution and render it braced and terse 
is likely to reduce to a minimum the possibility of 



MIND AND MATTER. 37 

taking disease, and this end is not a little gained 
by the assurance that there is no disease to con- 
tract, and that the possibility of infection does not 
exist. 

But this mental stimulant is by no means a specific; 
it is only a preventative. And when the microbes 
have effected a lodgment in that particular gland or 
locality where is to be found food upon which they 
can thrive, then it is impossible to conceive how they 
can be reached and killed. They must live their life, 
and " bring forth fruit after their kind." Therefore, 
when " Christian Scientists " and " divine healers," 
etc., assert they can and have cured, say, cancer, the 
statement is to be received with the gravest doubt. 
In my ministerial work I have several times attended 
to the Valley of the Shadow of Death some who have 
died of cancer, who gave heed to these "seducing 
spirits " and yielded themselves to the fallacious 
teaching of these people, to their great and bitter 
regret. Their time, their short time, was wasted, and 
worse; their mind and heart were diverted from 
holding on to Him who is our only help in time of 
need; their spiritual sight was beclouded with a haze 
of impersonality — a comfortless "all mind" or "infin- 
ite spirit " — and they found to their desperate sorrow 
that they had lost sight of Him who alone saith, 
"Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." "When 
thou passest through the waters I will be with thee." 

There have been also not a few who have brought 
upon themselves very serious censure. They aban- 
doned the known hope surgery and medical remedies 
offer, and deliberately consigned those, whom they 
loved, to a theory which cannot be proved, and, 



38 i; A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

indeed, is continually disproved. Such people ought 
not to be allowed so to tamper with the sick. In 
older countries the law protects the helpless from 
such harmful experiments, by either preventing those 
who have not secured proper diplomas from profess- 
ing to cure diseases, or else preventing those who 
have the care of the helpless sick from declining to 
call in medical assistance. 

There are some deluded people in England who 
call themselves " the peculiar people," whose belief is, 
that prayer is all that is needed for the recovery of 
the sick; and there may often be seen in the law 
reports the account of the trial, and very proper im- 
prisonment, of such persons, the law defending the 
helpless, and rescuing them from being the subjects 
of crude and contradictory theories; just as the law 
there prevents the vivisection of animals in attempts 
to verify mere guesses, or to substantiate some theory 
which is ill-considered and contains no probability of 
being true. 

Turning from this class of disease to those ail- 
ments caused by an actual displacement in the fabric 
of the system, we find the numerous sects of 'mind 
healers' at wide variance of opinion. 

Mr. Henry Wood, who poses as the philosopher of 
the " Christian Science " cult, and with whose every 
sentence any educated person would be disposed to 
cavil, either as to its form, or its diction, or the 
opinion it expresses, roundly declares that when any 
accident happens which breaks a bone or dislocates a 
joint, the wise " Christian Scientist " will at once call 
in medical aid. 

Not so, Mrs. Eddy. She is by no means disposed 



MIND AND MATTER. 39 

to allow that "divine man " is in any direction limited. 

" Christian Science" (she says, p. 400) is always the most 
skillful surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing which 
will be last demonstrated. However, it is but just to say that 
the author has already in her possession well-authenticated 
records of the cure, by herself and her students, through mental 
surgery alone, of dislocated joints and spinal vertebrae. 

Politeness would forbid us to contradict a lady, 
but we may venture to question " the well-authenti- 
cated." Nothing is more rare than to have "an 
unvarnished tale," and nothing more difficult than to 
wipe off the accretions of inaccuracy. If every story 
of a cured disability was sifted to its source, it would 
be soon apparent that none of these 'mind healers' 
ever have or ever will restore to its place a dislocated 
bone, or mend a fracture. 

Dr. Buckley, in the March number of the " Cen- 
tury " for 1887, gives the natural history of one of 
these stories, and, as it is a sample of all the rest, I 
quote it. It is thus narrated by the late W. E. Board- 
man, who says the story was told him by Dr. Cullis. 
Dr. Gordon has reproduced it in his "Mystery of 
Healing." It would be difficult to find three better 
men than these, each of them celebrated for personal 
piety and for widespread evangelical influence; each 
of them quite incapable of knowingly varying from 
the exact truth, and yet see how all three assisted in 
the production and the continuing of a wholly false 
account. Here is the story, in the graphic telling of 
Mr. Boardman, who apparently adopts the language 
of the father: 

"The children were jumping off from a bench, and 
my little son fell and broke both bones of his arm below 



40 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

the elbow. My brother, who is a professor of surgery 
in the college at Chicago, was here on a visit. I 
asked him to set and dress the arm. He did so, put 
it in splints, bandages, and in a sling. The dear 
child was very patient, and went about without a 
murmur all that day. 

" The next morning he came to me and said, * Dear 
papa, please take off these things ?' ' Oh, no, my son; 
you will have to wear these five or six weeks before 
it will be well.' ' Why, papa, it is well/ 'Oh, no, 
my dear child, that is impossible.' * Why, papa, you 
believe in prayer, don't you ?' ' You know I do, my 
son.' i Well, last night when I went to bed it hurt me 
very bad, and I asked Jesus to make it well.' 

"I did not like to say a word to chill his faith. A 
happy thought came. I said, ' My dear child, your 
uncle put the things on, and if they are taken off he 
must do it.' Away he went to his uncle, who told 
him he would have to go as he was six or seven 
weeks, and must be very patient. When the little 
fellow told him Jesus had made him well he said, 
' Pooh! pooh! nonsense,' and sent him away. The 
next morning the poor boy came to me and pleaded 
with so much sincerity and confidence that I more 
than half believed, and went to my brother and said 
to him, ' Had you not better undo his arm and let 
him see for himself ? Then he will be satisfied. If you 
do not, I fear, though he is very obedient, he may be 
tempted to undo it himself, and then it may be worse 
for him.' My brother yielded, and took off the band- 
ages and the splints, and exclaimed, 'It is well, abso- 
lutely well !' and hastened to the door to keep from 
fainting." 



MIND AND MATTER. 41 

Now, if this were a narrative under the inspection 
of "a higher critic," scanning it for signs of genuine- 
ness, he would undoubtedly find many. 

But the case was thoroughly investigated by Dr. 
Lloyd, of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 
"The Medical Record" for March 27, 1886, he pub- 
lished a letter from the very child, now grown up and 
a physician: 

"Dear Sir: 
" The case you cite, when robbed of all its sen- 
sational surroundings, is as follows: 

"The child was a spoiled youngster, who would 
have his own way, and when he had a green stick frac- 
ture of the forearm, and, having had it bandaged for 
several days, concluded he would much prefer going 
without a splint. To please the spoiled child the 
splint was removed, and the arm carefully adjusted 
in a sling. As a matter of course, the bone soon 
united, as is customary in children, and, being only 
partially broken, of course all the sooner. This is the 
miracle. 

" Some nurse, or crank, or religious enthusiast, 
ignorant of matters physiological and histological, 
evidently started the story, and unfortunately my 
name — for I am the party — is being circulated in 
circles of faith curists, and is given the sort of 
notoriety I do not crave. . . . 

" Very respectfully yours, 

" Carl H. Reed." 

Ex uno disce omnes ! 

Considering that the discoverer of this beneficent 
revelation is a woman, and that by far the greater 
number of its devotees are women, it would be 



42 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

strange, indeed, if that great trial of womanhood, 
child-birth, were not to be dealt with. On p. 77, in 
" Science and Health," Mrs. Eddy narrates a painless 
labor she presided over in Lynn, Mass., in 1874, and 
then, mirabile dictu! this great and pressing subject 
is barely mentioned. In the index, indeed, there is 
not a little reference under " Child-Birth," " Obstet- 
rics," and " Parturition,' 1 but most of the page refer- 
ences are the same, and the total result is sadly disap- 
pointing. The whole desire of an expectant mother is 
to avoid pain, and here are all the crumbs of comfort, 
the high priestess of a cult whose chief profession is 
to banish pain, herself vouchsafes to her eager listen- 
ers. On page 447, under the head of " Obstetrics," 
we have : 

Teacher and students should also be familiar with the 
obstetrics taught by the science. 

With this brave heading we may well imagine 
many an anxious woman took heart, and with joyous 
expectation read on, only to find, after yearning for 
bread, Mrs. Eddy offers a stone ! 

To attend properly the birth of the new child, or the Divine 
idea, you should so detach mortal thought from its material 
conceptions that the birth will be natural and safe. 

Then follows some very cautious and mysterious 
language. Mrs. Eddy takes great care not to promise 
painlessness in the process, and she is much too 
adroit to submit the truth of her theories to an 
experimental test, such as must often and inevitably 
occur to " Christian Science " women. She there- 
fore lets one of them state a single experience of 
more than twenty years ago, she herself avoiding any 
assertion. Surely, during the time her book has 



MIND AND MATTER. 43 

been multiplying to one hundred and five editions, 
thousands have had the opportunity to learn how 
their theories stood the test of that great trial. By 
this time the evidence must have become such an 
accumulated mass as to triumphantly declare the 
truth of the " Christian Science" theories, if there 
is any truth whatever in them. But where is it ? 
There is none! or it would have been only too eagerly 
forthcoming. Mrs. Eddy, in a late edition of her 
book, evidently is dissatisfied with the testimony of 
the mothers; her expectations are in the future; this 
she states in a sentence of curious indefiniteness. If 
a charlatan, convicted hopelessly of fraud, wants to 
study a mode of verbiage under which to cover his 
retreat, I commend him to this clever passage. It is 
a continuation of what I have just quoted: 

Through gathering new energies, an idea should injure none 
of its useful surroundings in the travail of spiritual birth. It 
should not have within it a single element of error, and should 
remove properly whatever is offensive. Then would the new 
idea, conceived and born of Truth and Love, be clad in white 
garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth sturdy, and 
its maturity undecaying. When this new birth takes place, the 
"Christian Science" infant is born of the Spirit, and can 
cause the mother no more suffering. Thus it will always be 
when Truth is allowed to fulfill her perfect work ! 

This is the only utterance of the oracle in response 
to the most imperative demand of womanhood; here 
is the one case of all others where the " Christian 
Science" theory might be expected to be worth some- 
thing; and what is it? A passage of such clever non- 
committal as the priests of Delphi themselves might 
well envy! 

Oh ! ye disappointed mothers, will not your suffer- 



U "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

ings teach you to estimate the worth of this delusion, 
and discard a teaching so utterly at variance with 
your experiences ! 

Occasionally the will may reduce the pain; but these 
theories are not essential to mental determination, 
and occasionally nature is so sympathetic that the 
ordeal is passed with scarce inconvenience. The 
other day, in this neighborhood, a doctor left a woman 
a happy mother at two o'clock in the morning. He 
returned at nine, to see if all was right. He took his 
breakfast at the restaurant which she and her hus- 
band kept, and he found that his patient had fried 
the oysters ! 

The practice of every medical man will furnish 
similar instances; and if a votary of " Christian 
Science " is so spared as to have a painless delivery, 
then it was a combination of circumstances which 
favored her, and she owed nothing whatever to Mrs. 
Eddy or her teachings. 

Let anyone consult "The Influence of the Mind 
Upon the Body," by Dr. Tuke, and he will there 
find instances of almost every disease being cured by 
the action of the mind — inflammatory rheumatism, 
dropsy, and what was apparently a case of far-gone 
consumption amongst the rest. 

There is no evil that does not bring with it some 
good; and if the delusion of this "Science" works 
evil to many it may not be wholly useless if only 
the attention of this generation is turned to the 
power that mind, rightly directed, may exert over 
disease. 

To sum up, then, the conclusions pointed to by the 
experiences we have cited, It may be safely held that 



MIND AND MATTER. 45 

will-power has a very evident and decided con- 
trol over the body; that God never intended his 
people to have immunity from those ills to which 
flesh is heir; but that sickness is to be treated, as all 
the other disciplines of life, as a means of spiritual 
education. The injunction of S. James that the sick 
might call for the Elders of the Church, and have 
them anoint the patient with oil and pray for re- 
covery, was never intended as a substitute for medi- 
cal treatment, but to supply that Godly dependence 
which was never inculcated by physicians of that day 
and seldom by their brethren of this generation. 
The words of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, in Ecclesias- 
ticus xxxviii., express, no doubt, the sentiments of 
S. Paul and his friend, "the beloved Physician, " as 
the attachment of S. Luke to the great apostle indi- 
cates in what light they held the words of S. James : 
" Honor a physician with the honor due unto him, 
for the uses ye may have of him: for the Lord hath 
created him. For of the Most High cometh heal- 
ing. . . . The Lord hath created medicines out of 
the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. 
Was not the water made sweet w T ith wood, that the 
virtue thereof might be known ? And He hath given 
men skill, that He might be honored in his marvel- 
lous w T orks. With such doth He heal men and taketh 
away their pains. . . . My son, in thy sickness be 
not negligent. But pray unto the Lord, and He will 
make thee whole. . . . Then give place to the phy- 
sician, for the Lord hath created him: let ,him go not 
from thee, for thou hast need of him. . . . He that 
sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hand 
of the physician" — and let all the people say, Amen. 



CHAPTER IV. 

" CHRISTIAN SCIENCE " HEALING. 

IT is now beginning to be recognized that the 
human mind is not one uniform and homo- 
geneous machine; it contains wheels within wheels. 
To the close observer it becomes evident that parts 
of the mind are capable of almost independent action. 
It is a common experience with men who are accus- 
tomed to speak in public that they are conscious 
of two currents of thoughts, the lips pronouncing 
the one, and the other part of the mind preparing 
for what is to come next, or probably making some 
observation connected with their audience which 
shall modify their mode of address. We seem to be 
arriving at the conclusion that beneath the active 
surface of the mind there lies an inactive but recip- 
ient mental plane, which has been called the ' sub- 
jective mind.' This mental department appears to 
receive involuntarily, whatever impression the senses 
impart to it, and faithfully to retain them, although 
what we may call the active and observing depart- 
ment of the mind may make no attempt whatever 
intelligently to understand, or to retain, the impres- 
sions so made. 

A very typical instance of this observation is 
recorded by Mr. Hudson in his " Physic Phenomena," 



"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 47 

where it is related that a servant girl at Gottingen, 
in the delirium of typhoid fever, uttered sentences 
in Greek, Hebrew and Latin on theological subjects. 
Many of these sentences were written down. The 
history of the girl was traced by one of the attend- 
ing physicians; and he found that she had once been 
in the service of a learned Lutheran pastor, who was 
in the habit of walking up and down a passage in 
his house, a door from which opened into the kitchen 
where the girl was working, and reading aloud from 
the works of Greek and Latin fathers. The pastor 
was dead, but he found his sister alive, who still 
possessed his library; and his painstaking search was 
rewarded by the discovery, in the favorite authors of 
the deceased minister, of the actual sentences that the 
girl had recited in her delirium. 

The only way of accounting for this is to suppose 
that the sounds which fell upon her ear, and could 
have been of no possible interest to her, were faith- 
fully registered as they had been received, by that 
part of her mind which has been termed ■ subjective; ' 
and during the process of the disease, certain con- 
ditions had been arrived at by which the contents 
of that part of the mind were re-delivered to the 
organs of speech, and without any mental effort 
of her own she reproduced, with something of the 
pomposity of voice in which they had been origin- 
ally delivered to it, the very sentences, in unknown 
tongues, which had reached her ears years before. 

That this subjective mind does exist, and faithfully 
retains all the impressions it has received, has fre- 
quent evidence in the sudden recollection of a series 
of events which apparently had been absolutely for- 



48 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.'* 

gotten. It is a common occurrence with persons on 
the brink of sudden death, especially if they are 
drowning, to declare that, with fearful rapidity, the 
whole of their past lives, even to minute details, 
passed in rapid panorama before their mental view. 

If we admit the existence of this compartment of 
the mind, we may have some explanation of the 
facts of hypnotism. A well-known nerval specialist 
tells me he has successfully treated certain dypso- 
maniacs by hypnotizing them, and impressing upon 
their subjective mind the fact that alcohol would 
make them violently sick, which thereafter it invaria- 
bly does. One of his patients lately, not having 
touched strong drink for a year or more, attended 
a public dinner. Of course he took no wine, but 
in the sauce for the pudding at the end of the dinner 
there was some rum; tasting of it, he hurriedly left 
the table to carry out the " suggestion " made over a 
year since. 

This glimpse into the construction of the mind, and 
the wonderful capacity of its * subjective' province, 
will lend us no little aid in offering some explana- 
tion of the numerous cures effected by "Christian 
Science " and kindred beliefs. 

A frequent experience of "Christian Science" 
healing, which is triumphantly pointed to as proof 
positive of the truth of the theory, is that a sufferer 
was healed by the perusal of Mrs. Eddy's book, quite 
apart from the influence of any healer, or the effect 
of * the sympathy of numbers' in a community of 
" Christian Scientists." The explanation of this 
effect may not be far to seek. 

It must be remembered that, speaking generally, 



"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 40 

the ills to which flesh is commonly heir may be 
divided into two classes. Those which are due to 
the invasion of the body by foreign life, and those 
which may be ascribed to disturbed nerval action. 
Of the former, phthisis, pneumonia, diphtheria, can- 
cer, typhoid, typhus and scarlet fevers, with some 
other ailments, are now definitely known to be the 
result of the disturbance due to the invasion of 
certain localities by microbes. These organisms, 
which are mostly of a vegetable nature, can be easily 
seen and recognized under the microscope. Like 
other orders of life, they have their day and genera- 
tion. They breed profusely, and exhaust all the 
nutriment they find in the gland they have invaded. 
This gland the meanwhile is incapacitated for its 
normal action, and the whole body, lacking that 
which the injured gland should supply, is thrown 
into disturbance. After the marauders have appro- 
priated all they can get, they die for lack of supply; 
then nature sets to work to repair the damage of 
the raid, and the patient gradually recovers. 

Of the number of the host of the invaders few 
people have any conception. A young doctor, who 
is given to this department of his profession, told 
me the other day that he had caused one of his 
patients to bring to him the sputa he had expec- 
torated in the morning. By dividing it by weight, 
and then counting the baccilli under the microscope 
in a fractional part, he found that in the quantity 
brought there could not be less than 5,500,000! 
What must have been the number of the host 
entrenched in the poor fellow's lungs! 

It looks as impossible, as it is improbable, that any 



50 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

power of mind can kill these invaders directly, yet, 
unless they can be either destroyed or incapacitated, 
that disturbance we call fever must continue. This 
class of diseases have not and cannot be cured by 
" Christian Science," despite that it is frequently as- 
serted that this is done. But it must be remembered 
that nerval derangement, or that obstruction to the 
normal tides of life we call congestion, may frequently 
give rise to symptoms by which the unskillful eye is 
deceived, and often the disease is called by the more 
serious name, when a far less cause of disturbance 
was really the ailment. 

It is high time that State authorities defended the 
public from the mischief done by " Christian Sci- 
ence " healers, who are wholly ignorant of the causes 
of the ailments of their 'patients.' 

They ought not to be allowed to practice upon any 
case, unless a medical opinion has first been obtained 
as to the nature of the disease; and if the invalids are 
found to be suffering from any of the class of dis- 
eases of which we are speaking, they ought to be 
handed over to properly authorized medical men. 

In every community inflicted by this novel cult, 
cases of life-long remorse can be told, of children 
with scarlet and typhoid fever, whose lives were in 
all probability wantonly sacrificed by the preposter- 
ous assumption of the healer and the astounding 
credulity of the parents. These heartbroken people 
cling to the flimsy theory to which they committed 
the life of their precious child with an agony of des- 
peration; for if they ever come to doubt it, and discard 
it, they must accuse themselves of the untimely death 
of their innocent! 



"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE " HEALING. 5J 

But the second class of ailments, which are chiefly 

due to nerval derangement, are the legitimate quarry 
my set of practitioners who can bring to bear the 

mind of the sufferer to set to rights the disorder. 

Faith curers, mind healers, mesmeric healers, "Di- 
vine Scientists," and "Christian Scientists" and com- 
pany, can none of them do much harm, and often 
great good, by their various treatments of this class 
of ailments. If any cure be effected, it has nothing 
to do with the truth or untruth of the particular 
theory of the professor; it is simply that by his 
methods the mind is directed to the trouble, and the 
normal condition of the body is stimulated to reassert 
itself. Success greatly, nay, often entirely, depends 
upon the disposition of the mind of the patient, the 
nerval susceptibility, and the strength of the expecta- 
tion. If these be favorable, then a perusal of Mrs. 
Eddy's book is no small mesmerizing condition. The 
constant repetition of senseless sentences confuses 
and benumbs the faculties of the active layer of the 
mind, in which dwells the intelligence; the ' sub- 
jective ' mind beneath is strongly impressed with the 
desired 'wholeness;' and it is the liberation, as it 
were, of this mental power to see to the repair of the 
damage, which really causes the cure. The vast mass 
of those who are relieved are women, and there is a 
sentence which is constantly being repeated by "Scien- 
tists," which really is the confession of their own 
secret consciousness, and which tells volumes of the 
causes of their ailments. They assure their votaries 
that 'sin must be removed,' and after the cure, ' that 
they must go and sin no more,' which must be to no 
small number very pertinent advice. 



52 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

That a mesmeric element enters into the process, I 
saw curiously illustrated, when one of the lights of 
the cult in denouncing Mrs. Cramer, the leader of the 
opposition, "The Divine Healers," declared with the 
utmost vigor, " She heals by mesmerism — by hyp- 
notism." We easily discern our own faults in others. 

We have still to supply some explanation of those 
cures which are said to have been performed ' by ab- 
sent treatment;' that is, by the effect of one mind 
upon another, either near or far off. 

All things are possible, but this can only be 
accepted as fact, after careful investigation of 
several cases, and as yet I have never seen evi- 
dence sufficient to warrant the belief that such cures 
have been wrought. But if they have, then their ex- 
planation must be sought for in the direction of that 
mental sympathy, and even actual communion of 
thought, which appears to exist between certain per- 
sons, under certain conditions. This chapter would 
expand to the size of a volume, to recount all the in- 
stances within reach which go to prove that there 
exists a subtle communication between some persons. 

A physician tells me he has in his practice a family, 
consisting now of the father and mother and three 
children; that when each of these children came into 
the world the father suffered pains which were syn- 
chronous and equally severe as those of the mother! 

Dr. Tuke, in his work on the effect of sympathy, 
narrates the instance of a lady who was greatly at- 
tached to a little child. The child, running through 
a garden-gate towards her, had its ankle caught by 
the iron gate closing quickly behind it. She felt a 
sharp pain in her own ankle, and on reaching home 



"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 68 

found it much swollen, and the mark of the gate, as if 
it had crushed her own foot and not that of the 
child. This much must suffice to indicate the close- 
ness of the chain of sympathy which binds some 
people into almost one. Everybody's experience can 
furnish numerous similar instances. 

That other condition, essential to the theory of 
* absent treatment,' the communication of one mind 
with another, is a much-debated question. But, per- 
sonally, I am convinced that under advantageous 
circumstances this, too, is possible. The requisite 
conditions, however, are so seldom found in con- 
junction that it almost precludes their general ap- 
plication as an explanation of cure by ' absent treat- 
ment.' Still, the conditions do exist, and it is pos- 
sible that one or two peculiarly advantageous 
circumstances may have presented themselves, and, 
under them, cures at a distance may have been 
wrought; and the fame of these isolated instances 
have given countenance to a host of dubious rela- 
tives, who, if strictly examined, would turn out to be 
either mistakes or impostures. 

Out of many personal instances I shall only state 
one, itself sufficient to prove the possibility. When 
an undergraduate, spending my vacation in my 
father's parish in a Yorkshire dale, there came to the 
town a conjurer, Signor Barnado, a tall, imposing 
man, with a black beard. Part of his entertainment 
was the exhibition of a clairvoyant, who was in the 
habit of cleverly describing articles given to the con- 
jurer by the audience, or repeating sentences silently 
recited by him. It was evident that all this could 
not be done except upon the supposition that she 



54 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

could read his mind. I had a friend, a country gen- 
tleman, then at his fishing box, some thirty miles 
away at the side of a trout stream. I well knew the 
room he sat in in the evening, and I wrote to him, 
telling him to be examining his fly-book at 9 o'clock 
next Tuesday evening. As the hour arrived I stood 
up in the audience, and said to the conjurer: " I have 
a friend thirty miles from here. I want to know 
what he is doing and where he is." Barnado asked 
me if I knew what he was about; I replied, I did. He 
put the question to the blindfolded girl, and she 
began to describe my friend to the life, his fresh face, 
his blue-spotted silk necktie, his gold spectacles, the 
mahogany furniture, the green-figured cloth on the 
table, the fluted silver candlesticks; he was reading a 
book. "What is it about?" asked Barnado. "I 
do not know," said the girl. " Turn to the title-page 
and read it." "There is no title-page." Then sud- 
denly, after a short pause, she said, " It's about fly- 
fishing." 

" Now," I said, "what is the name of the village ?" 
Barnado asked me if I would tell him, and he would 
stand near me, and away from the platform, but I 
replied that I preferred not to do so. He then 
asked the girl if she could tell, and after a moment 
or two she rightly replied, " Pateley Bridge." 

As this very interesting episode was in progress, I 
found she was reading my mind. As I arranged the 
furniture of the room, so she did ; as I pictured the 
fluted silver candlesticks, so exactly she described 
them; and if I had put on the end of my tongue that 
my friend was fishing at Timbuctoo, she would have 
said so. 



"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 

I have always been thankful I had this experience 
when I was a young man. For by its revelation I 

have laid to rest the perturbed mind of many and 
many a person, greatly disturbed by the pretended 
revelation of some spiritualistic medium. 

The 'communications' made by these people are 
entirely picked out of the minds of their dupes, and 
presented as messages from dead friends. 

As I am writing this, I have seated in my study a 
very intelligent Hindoo lady, and she corroborates 
what I have always held, that the feats so often 
ascribed to the occultism of the Hindoos, of seeing 
men throw ropes into the air, and then swarming 
up them; making tamarind trees grow at once before 
your eyes, and all those marvellous ' tricks ' supposed 
to be done by the ' adepts,' so beloved of Theoso- 
phists, are all worked by hypnotism, by processes 
she has never heard explained. Many of the by- 
standers are hypnotized, and made, by adroit sugges- 
tion, to believe they see things which are only sub- 
jective and not objective; the creation of their own 
thought, and not actual existences. 

If, then, the human mind is capable of these im- 
pressions, it is not stating an impossible suggestion 
that the healing of maladies due to nerval derange- 
ment is perfectly possible by the reading of Mrs. 
Eddy's mesmerizing book, or even by the mental 
suggestion of an absent healer, who usually puts her 
patient en rapport with herself by arranging the hour 
of the treatment. This hypnotic restraint of the 
'active' mind sets free the ' subjective ' mind to 
work, with its strange power, the ' suggestion ' im- 
pressed upon it. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DOCTRINE OF " CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 

A COUNTERFEIT dollar bill frequently passes 
current, and as long as its falseness is unde- 
tected it will purchase exactly as much as its legiti- 
mate representative. The possessor of the bill is 
quite satisfied with it. He rejoices in its possession, 
and until an expert discovers the fraud, and he sud- 
denly becomes aware that his money has vanished, 
and he only possesses a piece of very dirty paper, 
he builds his hopes upon it. He may be depending 
upon it to defray a pressing liability. Imagine 
his revulsion of feeling when, at the moment he 
most needs it, it proves worthless, and leaves him 
unable to pay his lawful debt, a hopeless bankrupt! 

A no more momentous question can any one con- 
sider, than, upon what his hopes for eternity are built. 
Has he any certain assurance that when he closes his 
eyes on this world, he will be with Jesus Christ and 
his servants in Paradise, in the next world ? 

In three chapters in S. Matthew's Gospel we have 
preserved for us " The Sermon on the Mount." It is 
the authoritative declaration by our Lord, wherein 
his teaching differed from that inculcated by the 
clergy of the day. A great many things they taught 
with which He agreed; these He does not mention; 



THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 57 

there is nothing here about public worship, although 
it was his wont to attend, and probably regularly 
attend, the Synagogue service. u Wist ye not," said 
He to his anxious mother, " that I must be in my 
Father's house ?" There is nothing here about offering 
sacrifices and the ritual of ceremonial worship. And 
yet He came not to destroy, but to fulfill the Law. 
Those who flatter themselves that their " forsaking 
the assembling of themselves together " finds sanc- 
tion from the Sermon on the Mount are grievously 
mistaken. This proclamation, together with the 
undisputed requirements of the Law, common to the 
teaching of our Lord and the Scribes, is an authori- 
tative statement of the religion revealed in the Word 
of God. This is the declaration by Him, who best 
knew, how the men of the earth may enter the King- 
dom of God. 

At the end of his sermon he gathered the prin- 
ciples he had been announcing and illustrating into 
a practical application; and if we were not so familiar 
with the words, they would take away our breath 
every time we read them. He says : " Not everyone 
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of 
my Father, which is in heaven." 

There are people who say that Jesu-s of Nazareth 
never laid claim to Divinity; they surely never read 
this passage. With what awful wonder must some of 
those who heard Him that day have listened, as that 
quiet-looking countryman, without any voluble assev- 
eration, declared that He was the Judge of all the 
earth ! 

" Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, 



58 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy 
name have cast out devils ? and in thy name have 
done many wonderful works ? 

Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; 
depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." 

There is little doubt that the presence of the last 
word, "iniquity," has hitherto deprived this passage of 
its vital moment. If " preaching in Christ's name " 
and " casting out devils " and " doing many wonder- 
ful works" be counted "iniquity," then the passage 
cannot be worthy of serious attention, and so it is put 
out of mind, as that with which we have no practical 
concern. But " iniquity " is not the literal rendering 
of the word, it really means "without law;" that 
what they advanced as reasons for being admitted 
into the habitations of the just were not accepted 
because they were not done lawfully, they had not 
the imprimatur of the right motive. This rendered 
them counterfeit, and therefore worthless. So that, 
to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; to live to with- 
stand and undo the " works of the devil," which 
bring on mankind sorrow and sickness; to live so 
unselfishly as to spend and be spent for others; to be 
an energetic, successful, and liberal philanthropist; to 
do what men call " good works," is of no avail, unless 
all is done from a right motive. 

The whole question turns on our personal know- 
ledge of Jesus Christ. If we can say with S. Paul, " I 
know Him whom I have believed," then and then 
only shall we work with the right motive, the love, of 
personal service to a personal Master; without this, all 
else is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal — and 
whatever may have been our experiences here, if we 



THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 68 

know not the Lord, we shall Learn our eternal doom 
from the other side of the closed door: 4l I never knew 

you, depart all ye that work unlawfully" — Matt. 
vii., 23. 

What we have to examine is, first, the works pro- 
fessed to be done by " Christian Scientists ;" and then 
whether the motives which prompted them are those 
found described and illustrated in the Bible. 

It is not with the smart pen of a controversialist 
that I approach this difficult subject, but I would 
rather ask my reader to believe I am concerned to 
state in the best form the "Christian Science" posi- 
tion, and with all loving anxiety to indicate where 
the "unlawfulness " is to be found; the "unlawful- 
ness" which proves the counterfeit, and jeopardizes 
the salvation of many truth-seeking souls. 

For the sake of perspicuity, as well as brevity, I 
shall confine my examination to the text book of the 
cult, " Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip- 
tures," by Mary Baker G. Eddy, Boston, edition 74. 
I restrict myself to this work, for all practical pur- 
poses the statement of the "Science" is here suffi- 
cient, and as I suppose from the following passage, 
which it would be easy to support by a hundred 
others, this book is the admitted and undisputed text 
book of the Society. In the October, 1895, number of 
the "Christian Science Journal," published by "The 
Christian Science" Publishing Society, it is said: 

Surely the people of the coming centuries will vie with each 
other in doing homage to the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the 
greatest character since the advent of Jesus the Christ, and her 
book, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," will go 
down in history as a part of the sacred writings of the ages. 



60 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

This book is fondly called " The Little Book," in 
allusion to that " little book M which the mighty 
angel in Revelations x., 8, had in his hand and gave 
to the Divine Apostle to eat. (Page 538.) 

For a statement of the works alleged to have been 
done by " Christian Science" I quote from a tract 
issued by the Boston authority. It exhibits the seal 
of the Society, and its title is " Religious Eras;" this 
is the description, " of course in part anticipative," 
of the characteristics and results " of the religion 
known by the name of i Christian Science:'" 

Suppose we had a religion we were glad to talk about whenever 
and wherever we met; that should become to us an all-absorbing 
theme; that should so interest us that, when we met together for 
purposes of religious worship, we should be so full of brotherly 
love and good-fellowship, so full of the fraternal feeling growing 
out of our religious thought and association, that we should 
feel loath to separate at the conclusion of the services, and 
repair to our homes. Suppose that, as the result of our religion, 
we should live for each other in a larger sense than we ever 
before dreamed of; that all social follies and frivolities should 
become so distasteful that, as a mere matter of choice, we 
should no longer care to participate in them. 

Suppose that this religion should enlarge our mental scope 
and elevate our taste to one for a higher and better class of 
literature; that it should bring us a single book which, with the 
Bible, should become so useful and helpful to us in our every- 
day life, that we should never tire of reading. Suppose that, 
as the result of reading this book and the Scriptures in the new 
light which it should give us, our natures should become so 
transformed that we should lose all taste for gossip, all love 
for idleness, all desire for unnecessary display; should lose so 
much of self, that the keen desire to live only for money-getting 
should pass away, until we could and would honestly say with 
Agassiz : M I have no time to make money." 

Suppose the reading of the little book to which I have 



I HE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." tX 

referred, should open our eyes to the fact that in all our past 
life we have been living almost wholly for self; that, so selfish 
had we been, we had brought misery not only upon ourselves 
but upon those coming in contact with us in our daily lives. 
Suppose it should open our eyes to the fact that we had been 
all our lives envying our neighbor, coveting his possessions, 
and wishing we could have as many good things, and enjoy 
life as well as he. Suppose it should open our eyes to the fact 
that we had been all our lives slaves to foolish and hurtful pas- 
sions and appetites; that in all our past lives we had been the 
victims of foolish fear — fear of this thing and fear of that, fear 
of sickness and death, fear of lightning and tempest, fear for 
our own safety and that of our friends, and especially of our 
children. Suppose, as the result of understanding this little 
book, we should awaken to the fact that our whole previous life 
had been one prolonged nightmare of foolish and unnecessary 
fear; that all the agony we had suffered in consequence was the 
result of our ignorance of what true life and true religion are. 

Suppose the little book should cause us to realize that much, 
indeed nearly all, of the misery and unhappiness we had suf- 
fered was the result of our own depraved will; that a part, and 
very considerable part, of this depraved will was the result of 
a foolish human pride — a pride as profitless as silly. Suppose 
it should open our eyes to the fact that almost all the time, 
often quite unconsciously to ourselves, as the result of this 
depraved will, we had been in the habit of practicing deceit; 
not only upon others, in ways that seemed harmless to them, 
as well as in ways we knew might or would injure, but, in our 
blindness, upon ourselves — flattering ourselves that we were 
having great success therein. Suppose that the little book 
startled us with the discovery that we had actually been the 
victims of the most intense hatred — hatred of our neighbor, 
hatred of ourselves — our own worst enemies; that it opened 
our eyes to the fact that we had been so full of revenge, that 
we had almost let the thought of murder get possession of us; 
that we actually would have felt relieved for the moment if 
some dire calamity had befallen the object of our hatred. 

Suppose we should have this experience; and then suppose 



62 "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

the little book should, after having laid bare our faults and 
shortcomings, so work upon us that these things would become 
so hideous and distasteful that we should of our own preference 
set about overcoming them; and further, that the more we 
strove in that direction the happier we should be, because our 
striving now actually brought about results plainly perceptible to 
ourselves and to our friends, so that even those who did not 
believe in our religion could but notice and comment upon our 
improved appearance and changed character. Suppose that the 
understanding of this little book so opened our eyes to the truth, 
beauty, and grandeur of the Bible, that, whereas it was before 
an obscure and almost meaningless fable, it now became a great 
light fresh from the hand of God, illuminating our heretofore 
dull and weary pathway; that, in consequence, we breathed a 
new atmosphere, saw with new eyes, heard with new ears, 
walked with new limbs, talked with a new tongue, thought new 
thoughts with a mind that had taken on a new vesture. 

Suppose that, as the result of our understanding the little 
book, we were brought into consciousness of a relationship with 
God, of which we had never before been able to conceive; that 
we realized a nearness to and a companionship with Him, that 
seemed utterly beyond our grasp in the old conditions; until we 
could, from our own experience, declare Him to be, in truth 
and in fact, Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence — an 
ever-present, practical Help in time of actual need. And, in 
addition to all this, suppose that we should, as the result of 
reading and understanding the little book, prove able not only 
to heal ourselves of sickness, and afterward keep ourselves 
free from attacks of sickness, but could heal our friends, and 
aid them in keeping themselves free from disease. Suppose, as 
the result of this kind of a religion, we were able to destroy in 
people the appetite for intoxicating drink, for tobacco, for 
gambling, for debauchery of every kind— -in short, for all kinds 
of foolish and hurtful expenditure of time and money. 

Suppose that these things could be accomplished presently; 
and that, beyond all this, we could see such mighty possibilities 
for the uplifting and regeneration of the human race right here 
on this plane of existence as poverty of language renders 
impossible of expression, and finite sense impossible of con- 



THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCi:." 68 

ception. Suppose this, I say (and there are many other BUp- 
itions in which we might properly indulge, but time forbids), 
and would not all unite in claiming this to be a true religion, 
the religion that the world needs; a religion, indeed, "of the 
people, for the people, and by the people j 1 ' a fulfilling of 
prophecy, and, in fact, the religion of Jesus Christ? 

This is, indeed, an entrancing and magnificent 
description of the "new earth," and if only there was 
anything of a hope "full of immortality," anything 
about a "new heaven," we, too, should feel it "our 
grand privilege and blessed work to spread this 
precious new Gospel." But it is exactly here, where 
most we need, that we have no teaching, no promise. 
"The little book " is mentioned ten times, and twice 
only, as if apologetically thrown in, is " with the 
Scriptures." The Word of God, which alone has 
brought " life and immortality " to mankind, is alto- 
gether superseded by "the little book." Not a word 
is said of Him who bringeth in righteousness, except 
to assert that this " Christian Science " is the religion 
of Jesus Christ. 

Let us now search its text book, to learn the distin- 
guishing marks of this Gospel, and see whether it be 
the Gospel of Christ, which S. Paul preached ; or is it 
" another gospel," and is it against the author of 
" the little book " and others like her that the great 
Apostle delivers himself so emphatically: "Though 
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gos- 
pel unto you than that we have preached unto you, 
let him be accursed " ? Gal. i., 8. 



CHAPTER VI. 



MAN. 



AS the object of this Gospel is the ameliorating 
of the condition of man, let us first try to learn 
what Mrs. Eddy would have us believe man is. 

Words in philosophic writing must have fixed 
values. They are to the philosopher what numbers 
are to the mathematician; if they do not bear the 
same meaning in the same book, the work becomes 
as worthless as if, in a mathematical treatise, the 
symbols 3 and 5 and 7 were used indiscriminately. 
This is a great cause of indistinctness in Mrs. 
Eddy's writings; she not only uses words to convey 
other meanings than are commonly current, but con- 
tinually the same word must have another meaning 
than that in which it was used on the previous page, 
or the sentence is inexplicable. As she uses "man" 
in two very different senses, it is very difficult to 
understand her theory. Page 291, she says : 

When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not 
the sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the 
ideal man, reflected as God's likeness. 

We immediately suppose that " man," then, means 
unf alien man, Adam before he sinned; but not so, for 
she complains of some critic in this same paragraph 



MAN. 66 

that he confounds man with Adam. Then " man," in 

her use, refers to an ideal man. Page 491 : 

Man is the family name for all the sons and daughters of 
God. 

Then, there are no sons and daughters of God in 
reality, but they exist as " ideals." 

It is evident that these blessed beings do not belong 
to our life, for on page 198 she says : 

The science of Being reveals man as perfect, even as the 
Father is perfect, because the soul, or mind of man, is God, 
the Divine Principle of his Being, and the real man is governed 
by this soul, instead of sense ; by the law of spirit, and not of 
matter. 

It is quite clear from this that "man" here referred 
to, is not such as we are, for we all eat, and in this 
are governed by sense, and if we did not eat we 
should not be here. 

Where, then, is this "man"? Is the ideal man 
inside the man we know ? It would appear so. And 
it is the office of "Christian Science" to draw this 
divine being to the surface, and make him take the 
governance of our personality. Page 426 : 

The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, 
not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the 
consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, aided by 
" Christian Science," we must master sin, disease, and death. 

This means to say that within a human being is a 
"man." This man is, indeed, the Deity Himself. 
Page 154: 

Mortals have a very feeble and imperfect idea of the 
spiritual man and the infinite range of his thoughts. To him 
belongs eternal life. Never born and never dying, it is an 
impossibility for Being, under the government of eternal sci- 
ence, to fall from its high estate. 



66 "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

Page 461 : 

Man is co-existent with God. 

Page 459 : 

Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death, inasmuch as he 
derives his essence from God, and possesses not a single original 
or underived power. Hence the real man cannot depart from 
holiness. Nor can God, by whom man was evolved, engender 
the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's 
man, for the offspring of God cannot be evil. Mortals are 
man's counterfeits. They are the children of the Wicked One, 
or the one evil, which declares that man begins as a material 
embryo. 

Mortals, then, are evidently men and women as we 
see them. They are counterfeits of the real, divine 
man, who is somewhere enshrouded in the human 
being, and which it is the prerogative of " Christian 
Science " to bring into evidence. But how did the 
counterfeit come into existence ? Mrs. Eddy tells us 
that it is the child of the Wicked One. It will not 
avail her to immediately obscure her statement by 
defining the Wicked One to be " the one evil," for 
"Wicked One" and "one evil " are by no stretch of 
imagination the same thing ; the one is an Agent, 
who begat the " Mortal," and the other is a quality; 
and a quality can do nothing. But we are not left to 
surmise what she means, for we are plainly told on 
page 460 that 

Mortals are not fallen children of God. They never had a 
perfect state of Being, which may be subsequently regained. 
They were, from the beginning of mortal history, conceived in 
sin and brought forth in iniquity. 

That is, by the Wicked One. 

Mortals are material falsities. In the words of Paul, they are 
" without hope and without God in the world." They are 



MAN. 81 

errors made up of sin, sickness, and death, which must disap- 
pear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man. 

Page 505 • 

Could spirit evolve its opposite, matter, and give ability to 
sin and suffering ? Does Mind, God, enter mat- 
ter, to become there a mortal sinner, animated by the breath of 

God? Man represents God; mankind represents 

the Adamic race, and is a human, not a Divine creation. 

What Mrs Eddy wants to prove is quite clear. 
Her idea is that man is the creation of God, and as 
such a part of Himself, and therefore in reality pos- 
sessing all that He is; perfect wholeness, goodness, 
etc. She even, compelled by her theory, asserts that 
he is " co-existent with God," that he is " never born," 
and is " never dying," and in spite of her assertion on 
page 464, that " Man is not God," this means that he 
is " a partaker of the Divine nature," and is God! 

But the experience of life exhibits man to be a 
very different being. Uncivilized human nature is 
the very antipodes of " goodness;" savages are very 
devils; and all men are born and all men die. 
Therefore, to accommodate her theory to the facts of 
human life, she is compelled to assume the visible 
man, who is too evidently wicked and feeble and 
dying, to be not of " Divine creation." In the quotations 
we have cited she ascribes his origin to two sources, 
the " Wicked One " and " human creation." And 
as her object is to deal and deal only with the divine 
man, there is nothing left for her but to declare that 
man, as we know him, is a phantom, an illusion, and 
not real. She found support for this view in the fact 
that this "mortal man," who must have a creator, for 
it is out of the question for nothing to make some- 
thing, cannot be brought into existence by God, 



68 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

" good," " all-good. " Therefore his existence is due 
to one of the only two other agents she appears to 
have heard of, "The Wicked One" and "man him- 
self." But, as geology assures us that this planet 
once was without life, there was a time when there 
was not such a being as " mortal man;" hence there 
is nothing for it but to allow that the origin of this 
"material falsity," this " counterfeit of man," is the 
work of " The Wicked One," and this marvellous 
deception is only what is to be expected, seeing that 
" he is the father of lies." The " mortal man," that is, 
man as we see him, is, then, a very wonderful con- 
struction of deception; he is a being who transacts 
his business in the world, and apparently does as he 
likes. There is in him an intelligence which regu- 
lates his life, but this very intelligence is itself mar- 
vellously adapted to carry out the grand deception — 
an assumption which is essential to the working of 
the theory. This intelligence is called " mortal mind." 
We are told on page 40 that this " mortal mind " 
is "the autocrat of the body." It "governs every 
organ of the mortal body;" indeed, so intimately are 
the two connected that (page 70) "mortal mind and 
body are one." This "mortal mind " builds its own 
body, which " from first to last is only a sensuous 
belief," and upon which (page 401) it is constantly 
producing the results of false belief; " this it accom- 
plishes through the five physical senses," which (page 
170) "are simply beliefs of mortal mind." 

That is, that whatever appears to affect us which 
would disturb our peace or our comfort is nothing 
but the illusion of "mortal mind" reaching us 
through senses which it has purposely devised for 



MAN. 69 

this shameful deception, and all we have to do is to 
refuse to be deceived; to roundly assert that we are 
under delusion, that there is no such thing as sin, 
sickness, and death, and in time the real man within 
us will shake off the nightmare that has seized us, 
and we shall awake into the light and liberty of the 
Kingdom of God, our true Father. It is the mission 
of " Christian Science " to work out for us this salva- 
tion. It is needless to say that this theory has no 
support from any other source; that the common 
sense of mankind derides it, and the continual death 
and burial of " Christian Scientists " declare it with- 
out foundation. 

But it is time to compare the " Scientists'" theory 
with the statements of their " text-book, " the Word of 
God, corroborated as they are by the experiences of 
humanity. The Wisdom of Solomon ii., 23, 24, states 
concisely what the rest of the Bible reveals: " God 
created man to be immortal, and made him to be an 
image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through the 
envy of the devil came death into the world; and 
they that do hold of his side do find it." 

It is unnecessary to multiply texts. S. Paul 
declares, what is held by all spiritually enlightened 
men, that " By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin," Rom. v., 12. The admission of 
sin, which was the act of the unfettered will of our 
first parents, vitiated our nature, and made man, not 
what the " Scientists " declare him to be, the offspring 
of God, with his nature and prerogatives, but of a 
nature similar to his tempter. Jesus Christ stated 
it concisely, " Ye are of your father, the devil." Man 
fell from the condition which he was first created to 



70 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

maintain, and he became wholly sinful. Any sin 
completely destroys holiness. He once was pro- 
nounced by his Maker to be "very good," but after 
his disobedience that same Maker declared that 
" every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
only evil continually," Gen. vi., 5. 

Mrs. Eddy is constantly declaring that as God is 
omnipotent He cannot be withstood of evil; that, in 
truth, there cannot be any evil to withstand Him; and 
yet she asks us to believe that " Man," himself a very 
part of God, is enveloped by a phantom form, the 
cunning device of the Wicked One, and in this 
" material falsity " is caused to reside all those delu- 
sions and " mortal beliefs " which make the passage 
of this life little else than a * Vale of Tears.' How 
can this be credited ? Surely the Divine Being could 
not be thus restrained, and especially by that which, 
at least He must know, has no reality. 

Not a few of Mrs. Eddy's followers have felt the 
impossibility of this assumption, and therefore 
" there was a division among them," which Scrip- 
tural assertion they may possibly construe to give 
warrant for the establishment of " Centres of Divine 
Healing." The one in Denver, which was dedicated 
by the Western prophetess of the " Science," Mrs. 
Cramer, of San Francisco, is out of harmony with 
the "Church of Christ (Scientist)." She has put forth 
a book, " Lessons in Science and Healing," and has 
proved herself such an adept at mystic writing that 
she and her husband issue the most credited magazine 
of the cult, "Harmony." 

On page 20 of this we read* 

" There is one God and Father of all, Who is above all, 



MAN. 71 

and through all, and in you all." — Eph. iv., 6. The limitless 
goodness is uncreate Being. This excludes the possibility of 
there being another life, substance or power. There are no 
powers that are not good, "for the powers that be are ordained 
of God." 

A belief in two powers, one Good and the other Evil, one 
warring against the other, and a belief that matter is life, and 
has powers and laws that are opposed to infinite spirit, is the 
division which causes all desolation. The belief that we have 
a lower and higher nature, one warring with the other, or that 
we have a lower self and a higher self, each striving to rule, is 
a house divided against itself. This belief has brought desola- 
tion, division and delusion upon humanity Igno- 
rance, or the lack of understanding in expression, is the source 
of the erroneous race belief in two powers, for this belief is 
judgment rendered on authority of what the senses reveal — 
intellectual reasoning. And just the opposite of the testimony 
of the senses is Divine Truth. 

Mrs. Cramer is more cautious than Mrs. Eddy. 
She ventures on no hypothesis how it comes to pass 
that we have been invested with senses for the ex- 
press purpose of deceiving us; she is content to make 
the assertion, and thereafter keep clear of an obscure 
and disagreeable subject. 

But this is the common belief of all " Scientists," 
that the testimony of the senses is contrary to the 
fact of divine wholeness, which must be the condition 
of the real man; that it is only necessary to shake off 
this delusion, and the true state of absolute perfec- 
tion will be enjoyed. It is not worth while to point 
to the anatomy of the organs of sense, and indicate 
the similarity of their contrivances to the correspond- 
ing organs in animals; and to point to the patent fact 
that they serve us in the same manner as they serve 
the animals, who have no divine nature to shroud in 



72 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

delusion. But, inasmuch as even " Scientists " admit 
that Jesus Christ is the Truth; indeed, Mrs. Eddy- 
declares that " the coming of Christ was the appear- 
ance of Truth," He was " the highest human con- 
cept of a perfect man . . . the divine idea of 
God, outside of the flesh;" then surely He must have 
been aware of the illusion practiced by the senses; 
yet He drops no hint of their faithlessness. Nay, he 
always appeals to their evidence in support of his 
claims : " Hearken unto Me," " Handle Me and see," 
" Lift up your eyes and behold." 

The Lord Jesus cannot be cited as a favorable 
witness in support of the " Scientists' " theory. 

It would be impossible for this compound man 
to remain under closest inspection all these centuries, 
and yet not exhibit some sign of the strange duality. 
Now, when such an intensely interesting and bold 
biological theory is broached, its only chance of 
serious examination by the intelligent world would 
be to support it by an array of accurate observations. 

The prodigious accumulation of accurate obser- 
vation is a large part of the claim for respect 
which Mr. Darwin makes of his fellow-man. What 
claim has Mrs. Eddy upon our serious attention ? 
She not only cites no proofs of any kind, but she 
reveals to us her total incapacity for observation. 
It would be, indeed, inexplicable that people incapa- 
ble of thinking, and uneducated, should give any heed 
to her statements, but that intelligent crowds, who 
have had the benefit of the public school educa- 
tion, should listen to " readers," properly accred- 
ited and salaried, for the very purpose of reading 
M the little book," is as strange a vagary of human 



MAN. 7;; 

nature as the history of it has ever produced. To 
judge of the calibre of Mrs. Eddy's mind, and her 
real capability for observation, read this astonishing 
paragraph on page 537 : 

It is related that a father, anxious to try this experiment, 
plunged his infant babe, only a few hours old, into water for 
several minutes, and repeated this operation daily, until the 
child could remain under water twenty minutes, moving and 
playing without harm, like a fish. Parents should remember 
this, and so learn to develop their children properly on dry 
land! 

Let any one hold their breath even for o?ie minute, 
and they can estimate the value of the rest of Mrs. 
Eddy's assertions. 

All the children of Adam were born outside Para- 
dise. We are particularly told that when in this con- 
dition "Adam begat a son after his own likeness and 
in his own image," Gen. v., 3. The descending course 
of human life has shown no signs of its returning 
to its pristine purity. David said exactly what the 
history tells us of the near descendants of Adam: 
" Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
mother conceive me," Psalm li., 5. And another 
thousand years of human experience have shown no 
improvement whatever. S. Paul stated his observa- 
tion, " All have sinned and come short of the glory 
of God," Rom. iii., 23; which is practically the same 
language as David used: "They are all gone aside; 
they are altogether become filthy; there is none that 
doeth good; no, not one," Psalm xiv., 3. 

If any one thinks that the race shows to-day any 
tendency to betterment, let him gain an accurate 
knowledge of the lives, say, of the Chinese, a people 
of an ancient civilization, and with a system of 



74 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

education such as the world has never seen, by 
which every post of Government, from the lowest 
official to the Taoti of a Province, can only be had by 
public examination. S. Paul's description of the 
heathen world, as he knew it, is the description of 
the heathen world to-day, where it has not been 
influenced by an atmosphere of public opinion 
cleared by the morals of Christianity. Read the 
latter half of the first chapter of his Epistle to the 
Romans, weigh the actual meaning of each sentence, 
and it is a fearful indictment — "they have altogether 
become filthy "! 

It was to this world, " lying in wickedness," that 
God came as a Saviour. And what is the plan of his 
salvation ? Not the development of the Divine germ, 
smothered and overborne by an accumulation of 
"fleshly lust ; " not the liberation of " the true man" 
from the grasp of his false double ; not the en- 
lightening of "the spiritual consciousness" of the 
real man, by the revelations vouchsafed to Mrs. Eddy, 
that he may fling off the trammels of " mortal mind," 
and rise from the charnel house of "sin, sickness and 
death," to walk in the liberty wherewith " Christian 
Science " hath made him free. To preach this were 
" another gospel." The gospel of the grace of God 
is the narration of the Incarnation, the death and the 
resurrection of the second Person of the Blessed 
Trinity, the Son of God. It is the assertion of the 
mode of production of a new kind of vitality. It is 
the statement of the process, as seen from a human 
point of view, of the modification of the divine life 
so that it could express itself through a body of this 
flesh. It is the solution of the problem how to make 



MAN. 7:, 

the material and immaterial worlds sentient of each 
other. 

The Lord Jesus Christ took down the middle wall 
of partition, and in Him the two worlds joined. 
He was "the Son of Man " who is in heaven. Just 
as He could say to Philip, "He that hath seen Me 
hath seen the Father," so he could say to the 
Intelligences of the Unseen World, " He that hath 
seen Me hath seen humanity." This is not a sup- 
position, but it is the central truth of the Bible, 
which is called "the Book of this life." The last 
of the inspired writers states the purport of the 
whole compilation: "This is the record, that God 
hath given us eternal life, and this life is in His 
Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that 
hath not the Son of God hath not life." 

Now 7 , it would be a thankless boon to bestow 
upon us as " a gift " that which we already pos- 
sessed. If we had in us "eternal life," why cause 
the inexpressible sacrifice of the Son of God to 
provide it for us ? Nothing is clearer in the Word 
of God, that " we have no life in us ; " that we are 
" dead in trespasses and sins ; " our English pre- 
position "in" is a very feeble representative of its 
Greek parent; in its original is included the agency 
by which the condition was acquired ; it is " the 
trespasses and sins" which keep us "dead." In this 
state "life " is presented to us ; that will, which our 
first parents used to do the deed of disobedience, 
has still the same liberty, and can accept this gift 
of eternal life if it so wills. Therefore, our Lord 
stood in the midst of the human procession and 
cried: " Ye will not to come unto Me, that ye might 



76 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

have life," John v., 40. As might be expected, 
when this life was accepted by anyone, then the only 
word we have to express the inheritance of life 
comes to be used — he is said to be " born from 
above," John iii., 3. Or, to use S. Paul's words, 
"And you, who were dead, hath He quickened," 
Ephes. ii., 1. It is a question of the impartation 
of life, a new vitality. S. Paul, describing one 
who has received it, declares him to be "a new 
creation," a totally new being, vitalized with 
another kind of life. The Apostle asserts: "The 
life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of 
the Son of God; and when Christ, who is my life, 
shall appear, then shall I also appear with Him in 
glory," Gal. ii., 20. 

This life carries with it the marks of any other 
vitality. It has a character of its own, from which 
it never deviates. This character was most thor- 
oughly displayed in Jesus of Nazareth. But the 
instant it finds lodgment in any heart, it there and 
then begins to produce a character more and more 
approaching His, as the life more and more gains 
command of the man. This is a very singular 
biological fact, and one which has not received the 
attention it deserves. It matters not who may be 
the subject of its influence, learned or unlearned, 
young or old, civilized or savage, the Esquimo of 
the Arctic zone or the negro of the tropics; at once 
is exhibited, despite the varied conditions of race, 
temperament, tradition or environment, the self-same 
character, whose elements are " love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, disinterested- 
ness, temperance." This is so real and so certain, 



MAN. 77 

that S. Paul points to that other mark of true life, 
the determination to reproduce its original, and 

accounts for the invariable exhibition of these traits 

of character by saying that "Christ is formed in us." 
This is the declaration of "the text book" of the 
" Christian Scientists," and it is as far from what 
they profess to have found in it as well-nigh can 
be imagined. Any one of the quotations already 
cited is quite sufficient to discredit their impossible 
theory. But if any one has any lingering doubt, let 
him consider the meaning of the words of S. John 
i., ii, etc. The Divine Apostle says that his Master 
was that "life" which was the "light" of men; that 
" He came to His own, and His own received Him 
not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He 
authority to be called sons of God, even to them that 
believe in His name;" that is, that when He, the 
life, found entrance to an open heart, that being, by 
virtue of the life, became united in living union with 
the origin of that life, and therefore had the right, 
the authority, to be classed as a son of God. And 
this marvellous condition was not acquired by any 
possible human effort; it was not a development 
of that which was already in human nature; it could 
not be come by, by any process of training in 
" science," or any other mode of initiation ; but it 
was wholly a gracious gift of God. " Which were 
born not of blood; "we did not inherit this Christ- 
life from our parents; "nor of the will of flesh;" 
this is by no means a repetition of what has just 
been stated; but "of flesh," without the article, was 
the Jewish mode of referring to circumcision, and all 
the ceremonial which followed upon it. The Apostle 



>/ 



78 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

tells us that this " Divine seed " is not got by any 
ceremonial, or sacrament, or church privilege; "nor 
of the will of man ; " no human effort or device will 
cause a soul thus to be born into the family of God; 
there is one, and only one way; it is the soul itself 
opening to receive Jesus Christ, it is thus "of God." 
" Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any 
man open the door, we will come in to him and sup 
with him." 

This is the natural history of redeemed man as 
given in the Bible, and it bears no likeness whatever 
to that taught by " Scientists." 

" I speak to wise men, judge ye what I say." 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE HOLY GHOST. 



WE must bear in mind that " Christian Science M 
and its relatives profess not only to take the 
Bible for their text book, but that its deep and spirit- 
ual meaning is revealed to them in fuller measure 
than to those who study it in the usual way. 

Everyone who is led by the Spirit of God naturally 
has a delight in seeking the Mind of God as revealed 
in His Word. The experiences of Bible students is 
uniform, that " spiritual things are spiritually re- 
vealed ; " that it is not to mere human intelligence 
and persistent study that the Bible yields up its 
precious treasures, but it is by the illumination of 
the Spirit that the sacred page becomes perspicuous, 
and w r hat to the ordinary reader is an intellectual 
reception, to the true child of God becomes " a living 
word ; " and at once acknowledgment is made that 
"The entrance of Thy Word giveth light." Of this 
prominent peculiarity of the true Christian the 
" Christian Scientist" is provided with a close coun- 
terfeit. This it is which most deceives the religiously 
inclined, the mere formal Christian, as it is shown 
that the study of the Bible is the ardent practice 
of " Scientists." To the unwary this appears a sure 
sign that "the thing is of God." But it is a coun- 
terfeit sign. 



80 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHTS 

The Baconian figment of the authorship of Shakes- 
peare lately had a transient passage over the literary- 
sky. Had anyone seen Mr. Ignatius Donnelly and his 
co-believers diligently conning their Shakespeares, 
it would have been a fair deduction that they were 
devoted students of the great poet. But they were 
not. What attracted them was only to search for 
apparent proofs of the novel theory which they had 
adopted. So it is with " Scientists " ; they do not 
study the Bible humbly and reverently to learn, 
"What will the Lord say to me?" but to find sup- 
port for the vagaries of their " Science of Being," 
and to twist the English translation of a Greek book 
to fit the crannies and turns of their desultory, tor- 
tuous theory. 

If they declare the Bible to be their " text book," 
and if they are ever ready to cite from its pages 
what they think is in their favor, they cannot object 
to honestly measuring their tenets by its express 
statements. There is scarcely any more vital revela- 
tion to us, living in this Dispensation, than the posi- 
tion occupied by the Holy Ghost in the present 
governance of the Church. When Jesus was glori- 
fied, the Holy Spirit, " the other advocate," descended 
to undertake the personal direction of the Church. 
So persistently is He referred to in the Acts of the 
Apostles, that that book might well be called "The 
Acts of the Holy Ghost." He came with irresistible 
power on the day of Pentecost, and remained on 
earth. The Apostles continued in Jerusalem, a col- 
lege, for twenty years, bearing witness, in the only 
place on earth where their witness could be refuted, 
to the Resurrection. S. Peter well knew the im- 



THE lloi.V GHOST. M 

mense necessity of this institution. He said to the 
Sanhedrim: "And we are his witnesses of tt, 
things; and so also is the Holy Ghost," Acts v., 32. 
When they sat in council it is almost as if the King- 
dom of God were at length " set up " on earth, and 
the royal throne in the council chamber possessed 
in actual sight the August Majesty. The very first 
edict they issued, which was to lay to rest the burn- 
ing question of the time, whether the Gentile converts 
should first become Jews before they could be ad- 
mitted into the Church of Christ, begins: " It seemed 
good to the Holy Ghost and to us," Acts xv., 28. 
They do not appear to deem any preface or explana- 
tion necessary; but, as if it were natural and well 
understood, they count the Holy Ghost as one of 
their number. 

Throughout the whole book He is ever present 
in distinct personality. It w r as to the Holy Ghost 
Ananias and Sapphira lied; it was the Holy Ghost 
who spoke by the Apostles; it was the Holy Ghost 
the persecutors of Stephen resisted; it w T as that the 
men on whom Simon Magus should lay his hands 
might receive the Holy Ghost that he offered Peter 
money; it was the Holy Ghost who sent Philip to 
join himself to the Ethiopian Eunuch; it was the 
Holy Ghost who " caught away Philip" after his 
mission was fulfilled; it was the Holy Ghost who 
sent Peter to the Roman, Cornelius; it was the Holy 
Ghost who said, u Separate me Barnabas and Saul 
for the work whereunto I have called them ;" it was 
the Holy Ghost who forbade them to preach the 
Word in Asia; it was the Holy Ghost who suffered 
them not to go into Bithynia; it was the Holy Ghost 



82 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

who, S. Paul declared to the Ephesian Elders, had 
made them overseers of the flock; and the whole 
narrative is full of the receiving of the gifts of the 
Holy Ghost. 

That constant students of the Bible should fail to 
note the fact that the Holy Ghost is the Divine 
operator in that age, of which the Acts of the 
Apostles is the first historical page, and in which 
we are at present living, seems incredible. And 
when we learn that, as at the first creation, He it 
was who imparted life to this lifeless planet, so He 
presides over the birth of the new man, and the 
second creation is due to his life-giving energy; 
when we know that the whole initiative of salvation 
rests with Him, and that our eternal safety wholly 
depends upon the possession or the non-possession 
of the Holy Ghost, then it is strangely ominous that 
" Scientists " discard His personality and reduce His 
mighty agency to the intangibility of a " develop- 
ment of eternal life, Truth and Love," page 567. 

This is so serious a charge that it becomes us to 
examine carefully what this " Science" does hold 
concerning the Holy Ghost. 

In the Bible, Holy Ghost and Spirit are synony- 
mous terms, but not so in "Divine Science." "Spirit" 
is defined, page 573, as: 

Divine substance; mind; principle; all that is good; God; 
that only which is perfect, infinite, everlasting; omnipresent 
and omnipotent. 

On page 230 we are told " Soul and Spirit are one." 
Whatever, therefore, may be meant by " Spirit/' and 
it is not easy to say what Mrs. Eddy does mean, she 
certainly does not intend us to understand that when 



THE HOLY GHOST. 83 

the word Spirit is used, the Holy Ghost of the Bible 
is meant. 

Holy Ghost she defines on page 567 to he "Divine 
Science ; the developments of eternal life, Truth and 
Love." 

In recounting the salient features of our Lord's life 
in the light of " Divine Science," on page 351, she 
thus proceeds : 

His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is 
meant, that by all they had witnessed and suffered they were 
roused to an enlarged understanding of Divine Science. 

. . . . They no longer measured man by material sense. 
After gaining a true idea of their glorified Master they became 
better healers, leaning no longer on a leader, but on the Divine 
principle of their work. The influx of light was sudden. It 
was sometimes in overwhelming power, as on the day of Pente- 
cost. 

Page 348 : 

Hitherto they only believed; now they understood. This 
understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy 
Ghost, that influx of Divine Science which so illuminated the 
Pentecostal days, and is now repeating its ancient history. 

On page 255 is given the platform of " Christian 
Science." Article X. is : 

The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this triune Principle, and 
is expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading 
into all truth, and revealing the Divine principle of the universe — 
universal and perpetual harmony. 

It might be thought from the first of these quota- 
tions that Mrs. Eddy uses " Divine Science " as another 
appellation of the Holy Ghost, but we are precluded 
from accepting this by the statement on page 17 that 

the re-discovery of this Divine Science of mind-healing, 
through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the 
teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master, 



84 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

is one of the two parts of the revelation vouchsafed 
to Mrs. Eddy: 

When standing within the shadow of the Death Valley, I 
learned these truths in Divine Science. 

If some of these expressions seem to recognize the 
personality of the Holy Ghost, this cannot be of 
deliberate purpose, and must be ascribed to a lapsus 
calami, in the presence of such repeated expressions as 
"the facts of Divine Science, ,, " the mirror, Divine 
Science," " the Alpha and Omega of Divine Science." 

There are only two other references, if the index 
be complete, to the Holy Ghost. In one, page 364, 
" the chambers of disease" appear to be called "The 
temple of the Holy Ghost," and the other is (page 

334): 

The Holy Ghost, or Divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure 
sense of the Virgin-Mother with the full recognition that Being 
is Spirit. 

What would be the Acts of the Apostles and the 
Epistles, if from them were eliminated all mention of 
the Holy Ghost ? But " Science and Health, with 
Key to the Scriptures," would be very much benefited 
if the seven indistinct and uncertain allusions to Him 
were left out. 

The conclusion is inevitably forced upon us, that 
this system of "Christian Science" has no place for 
the work of the Holy Ghost; and as He alone is the 
"Lord and Life-Giver," as without Him there can 
be no life unto God, no birth into the Kingdom of 
Christ, no process of sanctification, and no final holi- 
ness, "without which no man shall see the Lord," the 
relation between " Christian Science " and Christian- 
ity seems but nominal. 



CHAPTER VIII 



SPIRIT. 



IF Mrs. Eddy had written with even any attempt at 
exactness, her book and her ' science ' would never 
have had the success they have. A perusal of the 
pages of this remarkable book will reveal to the per- 
son of ordinary intelligence that that quality of the 
mind which is called * thought ' is here so persistently 
defied, that at length it retires from endeavoring to 
understand what the authoress means, and in that 
bewilderment which then ensues, the mind surren- 
ders itself to that very condition which is essential 
for the operation of ' suggestion ' to work upon the 
disordered body. 

I found that Mrs. Eddy's book was the best mode 
of inducing the mesmeric sleep I had ever experi- 
enced. The repetition of senseless sentences, with 
constantly changing signification of words, whose 
new meanings had to be gleaned from the context; 
this long string of synonyms: Principle; Mind; Soul; 
Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; Substance; Intelligence; 
are all synonyms for God, and their interchange in 
sentences produced a strange maze, which made the 
mind dazed, and it took on the mesmeric condition. 
When in this state, the ' subjective' mind was lib- 
erated to follow ' suggestion.' Of course this process 



86 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

will only be effective with certain people. Those who 
decline to read unless they understand, declare the 
book to be rubbish, and throw it aside; but those 
who are not particular about fathoming what they 
read, accept w T hat Mrs. Eddy has written, yield them- 
selves to the misty labyrinth of her sentences, become 
mentally dizzy, though they do not recognize it — 
mesmerized, in fact. It is a condition not unallied 
to intoxication, and is as enthralling and attractive. 

Not long ago I heard that a young professional 
man of great promise, who was, and indeed is, af- 
flicted with such nervousness that he is unable to 
control his muscular movements, was attending the 
" Church of Christ " (Scientist). I asked him if he 
had accepted the theories there propounded. He re- 
plied, smiling, " Well, no; but you know how nervous 
I am, and I find going there mesmerizes me, and I 
sit quiet." 

In thus writing, I am not making unwarrantable 
aspersions on Mrs. Eddy's indiscriminate use of 
words, and the playfulness with which she treats 
their etymology. I quote from page 233, a plank from 
her ' platform: ' 

The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the 
red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. Divide the name 
Adam into two syllables and it reads a dam, or obstruction. 
This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind 
in solution, of the darkness which seemed to appear when 
" darkness was upon the face of the deep," and matter stood as 
opposed to spirit, as that which is accursed. 

Despite the fact that lucidity would render inopera- 
tive the whole system, there must be some people 
among the 200,000 ' Scientists ' who believe that Mrs. 



SPIRIT. 87 

Eddy's terms are to be seriously taken, and that 
definite meanings are to be ascribed to her phrases. 

We now roach the keynote of the li Science," Spirit. 
It will be well to remind ourselves that there are 
certain ideas which the human mind is not con- 
structed to entertain. Infinity, for instance. No 
number can be conceived to which it is not possible 
to add a unit; no space can be thought of to which 
an extension cannot be imagined. Spirit, too, lies 
beyond the grasp of the human mind. We are so 
familiar with the word, that we have come to believe 
we have a conception of Spirit; but let the attempt be 
made to form a mental picture of Spirit, and it will 
be found impossible. We receive all our ideas from 
sensation and reflection; but as we have no sensa- 
tion of Spirit, the mind is not supplied w T ith the 
elements from which to construct its idea. 

The body has been under our closest scrutiny for 
these six thousand years, and as yet scientific obser- 
vation has not been able to note any single fact about 
" life," the spiritual power which drives the marvellous 
mechanism. The complete seclusion in which this 
spiritual force secretes itself is the more remarkable 
when we consider its wonderful strength; the human 
heart is worked by it with a force which could lift 
25 foot-tons in twenty-four hours. Few people com- 
prehend the terrific energy of this unseen occupier of 
the human frame. When we consider this, and re- 
member that the governor of this seething corpora- 
tion has never been brought forth to view, although 
he has been unweariedly sought for, it ought to make 
us cautious in our use of the word Spirit. 

Matter would seem to be the bete noire of the 




^> X 



88 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

1 scientists/ Mrs. Eddy views matter as not only the 
opposite of Spirit, but its determined antagonist. 
She is unable to see how the Creator, himself Spirit, 
can ever have brought into existence so unspiritual 
a thing as matter. But what is impossible to Mrs. 
Eddy and her following may not be so difficult to 
minds otherwise educated. On page 174 she writes: 

Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals 
nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter. 

Science destroys matter. Spirit is the only substance and 
consciousness recognized by Science. 

The senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for 
matter has no sensation. To Science there is no matter, even 
as to truth there is no error, and to good no evil. 

It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance- 
matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit is God, and God is all; 
hence He can have no opposite. 

This last sentence contains the central falsity upon 
which pivots the whole theory of " Christian Science:" 
"Spirit is God, and God is all; therefore all is Spirit." 
" Spirit is God " may be true, if, to adopt the lan- 
guage of theological science, the substance of the 
Deity is Spirit. Our Lord said to the woman at the 
well, in order to impress upon her that materialism 
was not the great question, for all her religion was a 
matter of facts and forms, that " God is Spirit," not a 
Spirit. But to say that whatever being is composed 
of spirit is God, is not true ; for there are evil intelli- 
gences who are of spirit, and vast orders of life which 
people the unseen world. So that what we ought to 
say is, Some Spirit is God. 

Then, again, to say " God is all" is not true. Our 
Lord, only to refer to one of his assertions, said to 
those who resisted Him, " Ye are of your father, the 



SPIRIT. 89 

devil;" and even if the " Scientists " will not allow the 
Stence of the devil, there are many men who have 
not a spark of goodness in them. kk God is not in all 
their thoughts." These inhabit that land of X 
where Cain and his following live in forgetfulness of 
God, and are " without God" in their world. 
God is not all. 

The " Scientists " seem to forget that the very neces- 
sity of Love is, that it shall have some being on 
whom to rest its affections. That God, being Love, 
was compelled to people the universe with personali- 
ties, whom He might love. Such personalities must 
have freedom of choice. If a being is compelled to 
act according to the mind of another, and has no mind 
of his own, he is an automaton, and not worth loving. 
Such personalities God did create, and we are speci- 
mens of them; we certainly have freedom of choice; 
we can obey or disobey God. So that the favorite 
assertion of " Scientists " is not true, God is not all. 

When He will say, and is saying, " Depart from Me 
ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil 
and his angels," He declares that there are beings in 
existence with whom He has no part, and in w r hom 
He does not and cannot reside. God is Spirit, but 
God is not all. Whether what is not God can be 
asserted to be Spirit or not, we cannot say. Mrs. 
Eddy, however, is less cautious. On page 230 she 
affirms: •" God never created matter, for there is 
nothing in Spirit out of which matter could be made."' 
This entirely depends upon what Spirit is, and what 
are its qualities and capabilities. 

Suppose we allow that Spirit is substance. When 
Mrs. Eddy says, page 230, that " Spirit is the only 



. 



90 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

substance,'' she probably expresses a greater truth 
than she at all imagines; indeed, the next words show 
she has not an inkling of the possible truth of her 
assertion that " Spirit is the only substance, the in- 
visible and indivisible God." 

To be able to at all think clearly upon this occult 
subject we must be careful to discriminate between 
Spirit and Life. When we say Spirit is substance, we 
mean that it is an existence which lends itself to the 
offices of Life. Substance is that which " stands 
under" and gives support to something else. We 
may even say that Spirit is to a spiritual being what 
flesh is to a human being. This, indeed, S. Paul 
distinctly says: " There is a natural body and there 
is a spiritual body," I. Cor. xv., 44; but the word he 
used for " natural " would be literally rendered by 
" soulical," if there was such a word; that is, a body 
of which the soul is the vitality, the animal body. 
So the life, when it is a denizen of an immaterial or 
spiritual world, needs some substance of which to 
construct a body wherein and whereby it may trans- 
act the business of that world — "a spiritual body." 

It seems probable that the life assumes for itself 
three bodies, each of them necessary in the three 
states which we are to inhabit. As we are now, here 
in this material world, we have a body of the same 
sort of matter as the planet on which we live. " The 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." 

Shortly we shall " shuffle off this mortal coil." 
What " body " will the life then occupy?" The 
spiritual body, S. Paul tell us; that is, a body of the 
nature of that spiritual world, where it will await the 
day of the Resurrection. Then it will again occupy 



SPIRIT. 91 

a third body, adapted to the altered conditions which 
have brought about " the new heavens and the new 
earth." We have been granted some insight of this 
mysterious subject in seeing the changes to which the 
body of the Lord was subject. When He died, He cer- 
tainly carried with Him his personality. The man who 
was crucified on his right hand no doubt recognized 
Him in Paradise; he must have been able to do so, 
otherwise the Lord's assurance, " This day thou shalt 
be with Me in Paradise," would have been little else 
than a phrase without definite meaning. Our Blessed 
Lord doubtless would appear the same man to him in 
Paradise as he saw Him on Calvary. Abraham and 
Joshua and Daniel, and the disciples, and 'the spirits' 
in prison, and those to whom He showed Himself after 
his resurrection, and S. Stephen and S. Paul and 
S. John, after his glorification, all saw the same man. 
His personal appearance was no doubt always the 
same, only under various conditions suitable to its 
environment, it was a 'vile' body or a 'glorified' 
body; but always the body of the Son of God, 
through which the Deity, ever unseen, expressed 
Himself to the beings He was then dwelling with. 

The qualities of the resurrection body of the Lord 
ought to make "Scientists," and the ordinary kind of 
Scientists, more careful what assertions they use 
about matter. The material of that body evidently 
possessed other qualities than those which describe 
the matter with which we are familiar. It was not a 
phantom shape. Thomas doubtless could have put 
his finger into the print of the nails, and have thrust 
his hand into the gaping spear-wound in his side. It 
evidently was not seen by reflected light. It was 



92 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

recognized by another sort of light, perhaps that 
kind of light which illumines the other world, where 
they need not the sun to lighten them; moreover, it 
could only be seen when He willed it. No one, sav- 
ing those who ' knew ' Him, appears to have been able 
to see Him. It was only to his own that He ever 
' shewed Himself ' after his resurrection, and the 
power of recognition had something to do with the 
condition of their own faith, for when He met all his 
Galilaean disciples we are told all the five hundred saw 
Him, 'but some doubted.' His body still retained 
some qualities in common with the material of which 
this world is made; his voice moved the air and made 
sound; and He ate before them 'apiece of a broiled 
fish and an honey comb.' 

Mrs. Eddy, no doubt to ward off the very natural 
suggestion that if matter is nothing but an illusion, 
it were folly to persist in the delusion that food is 
necessary to maintain what is nothing, declares, "We 
need more goodness." Now, I hope she would not 
suggest that our Blessed Lord was not actual 
'Righteousness' itself; and yet He was pleased to eat; 
so that it is not a question of 'goodness' whether we 
can do without food. 

Our Lord's body could pass through closed doors 
and walls; it could appear and vanish at will; and at 
last, in no chariot of fire, but by its own capability, it 
ascended into heaven. It evidently was either not 
subservient to the law of gravitation, or completely 
under the control of the will. This gives us a glimpse 
of another kind of matter, a kind which is much 
nearer the condition of the substance of the spiritual 
world. This, we believe, shall be the condition of 



SPIRIT. 93 

our bodies when we shall rise from our graves, for 
we are assured * we shall be like Him.' 

There are certain hints in this direction which 
science has of late whispered which are little less than 
exciting. We have long known that the whole uni- 
verse is filled with a fluid which physicists have 
agreed to call ether. It is the oscillations of this 
ether which cause in us the sensation of light. We 
can measure the lengths of these oscillations, or 
waves; w r e know the exact number which must occur 
in a second to produce a certain color. It would oc- 
cupy the whole of the population of the United 
States, counting for twelve hours a day, nearly six 
months to count the number of waves of ether which 
must impinge upon the retina of the eye in one sec- 
ond to give the sensation of violet light for one short 
moment. Certain mathematical conditions seem to 
require that, to allow of the prodigious velocity with 
which waves of light traverse the ether, this ether 
shall have something like a pressure of 70,000 pounds 
on each square inch of surface. That is to say, the 
whole universe is moving, not in empty space, but in 
a transparent, impalpable, imponderable something, 
ether, more dense than almost any solid with 
which we are familiar. It is practically certain that 
the particles of matter are in violent movement; that 
that which appears to us silent and motionless is 
really in indescribable commotion, greatly accelerated 
by any rise of temperature. Lord Kelvin, the great- 
est living authority on such subjects, suggested what 
is known as " The Vortex Theory," that matter itself 
is composed of vortices, discs or rings, of this ether, 
in varying conditions of movement and compression, 



94 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

and there are mathematical considerations which again 
support this theory. Here, then, is a purely physical 
conception of the universe that is startling. This 
ether, which cannot be seen or handled, and which is 
imponderable, under certain conditions becomes 
matter. Matter is simply a term for ether in these 
particular conditions. Ether is the only substance. 
Substitute the word Spirit for the word Ether in the 
foregoing, and the words of Mrs. Eddy are truly 
prophetic, " Spirit is the only substance." 

Pondering on this wonderful subject, the Boston 
Sybil, oppressed with her mighty mission, on page 
225 of "the little book/' wrote: 

The individuality of spirit is unknown, and thus a knowledge 
of it is left either to human conjecture or to the revelation of 
" Divine Science." 

We still wait for the revelation; and in the mean- 
time we deal with matter, as food, clothing, and even 
dollar bills, as Mrs. Eddy herself does, and advises 
her pupils, the Healers, to do likewise ! 



CHAPTER IX. 



FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 



THE grand distinguishing feature of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ is the doctrine of the forgive- 
ness of sin. No philosophy which ever laid serious 
claim to the attention of men has ever proposed a 
way by which the consequences of wrong-doing in 
the past might be averted, and the present inclina- 
tion to do wrong again taken away. No religious 
teacher on earth ever boldly proclaimed to his fellow- 
men that by following his advice, they might be rid 
at once of the future consequences and present power 
of sin, but Jesus Christ. He, and He alone of men, 
ventured to say, " Come unto Me all ye that are 
weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest " — 
rest from ' the burdens of the way ' and the fear of 
future retribution. That this is no vain Gospel is 
witnessed to by thousands in every generation. 
Jesus Christ has never been without witnesses to the 
wonderful result of ' coming unto Him/ 

His people 'praise God in the fires;' they 'sing 
songs in the night; ' they are ' filled with the joy and 
peace of the Holy Ghost;' they are 'in' the world 
but not ' of ' the world; they walk on air. Read the 
present evidence of missionaries all over the world; 
read the story of John Paton, who is to-day on the 



96 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

island of Aniwa, in the New Hebrides, and there see 
how a whole island of brutal cannibals became in 
eight years transformed into a peaceful, loving, joy- 
ous community, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ; or go 
to the nearest Salvation Army captain and ask him 
to show you a man or a woman who a few months 
ago was living in dirt and shame, and you may now 
see ' a new creature,' with a changed nature and a 
changed face. The minister of every church ought 
to be able to point you out here and there one who 
had suddenly ' touched Christ,' and was walking ' in 
the light of life,' with a halo of very glory about 
them, the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost. This is 
why miracles are no longer necessary. 

The ' signs ' that the Gospel of Christ is ' the power 
of God unto salvation ' are all round us. To change 
a whole nature is a much more astonishing work 
than to open the eyes of a blind man. This is done 
every day by the simple, straightforward statement 
of the Gospel, and its whole-hearted acceptance. It 
is by ' taking God at his word,' and ' believing ' what 
He says, that our ' sins are forgiven by the sacrifice 
of Jesus Christ; ' that we * yield ourselves unto God;' 
then the life of Christ — that is, Christ himself — 'comes 
into us and abides with us.' This is the change 
which comes in conversion, and the astonishing effect 
of it can be explained in no other way. It then fol- 
lows, that if the soul becomes vitalized by the life of 
Christ, so that the words of S. Paul are experi- 
mentally realized: 'The life that I now live in the 
flesh I live by Christ's faith, and when Christ, who is 
my life, shall appear, then shall I also appear with 
Him in glory,' Gal. ii., 20; if the assertion of S. John 



FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 97 

comes true, ' He that is born of God sinneth not, fo: 
his seed remaineth in him;' then it must be that the 
actual 'life' of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the 
believer; and whatever that life did, or will do, the 
person that has it, also did, and will do! This is the 
way we are ' planted together into His death/ in the 
past; and by this absolute union with Christ, we even 
now ' sit together with Him in heavenly places.' In 
fine, we are veritable members of his body, bone of 
his bone, flesh of his flesh; one with Christ, and 
Christ with us. Astounding as it may seem, never- 
theless it is an inevitable consequence of ' the law of 
this life/ that whatever Christ is or has, that, and 
nothing less, is ours; "All things are yours, and you 
are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 

This is the Gospel Paul preached; now see what 
a pitiful travesty of this magnificent revelation is 
"Christian Science." If Mrs. Eddy and company 
discarded the Bible, and honestly declared that they 
shewed unto us ' a more excellent way/ we should 
at least know by what to estimate their offer. But 
professing to ' take the Bible for their text-book/ 
and characterizing themselves as " Christian Scien- 
tists," they mislead unwary souls and palm off upon 
them * another Gospel/ which has no salvation in it, 
and they well deserve the anathema S. Paul pro- 
nounces against them. 

The Christian reader of the books of Mrs. Eddy, 
and Mrs. Cramer, and Mr. Henry Wood, and the 
other writers of the cult, soon becomes aware that 
none of them have any conception of the real nature 
of sin. It is never more than casually mentioned, 
and is always spoken of as a flaw of the disposition, and 



98 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

never as the deep-seated leprosy of the nature. On 
page 345 Mrs. Eddy gives us her opinion on this vital 
question: "When mortals once admit that evil con- 
fers no pleasure, they turn from it;" which is not true. 
How many a man have I seen 'tied and bound with 
the chain of his sin/ with bitter tears cursing and 
loathing the strong drink which he detested and yet 
loved, and could not turn from, although it not only 
gave him no pleasure, but was bringing on him and 
his swift and sure desolation; but to proceed: 

"Divine Science " adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted it. 
Science removes the penalty, only by first removing the sin, 
which incurs the penalty. This is the sense of divine pardon 
which I understand to mean God's method of destroying sin. 

How can ' Science ' remove a penalty by removing 
a sin which already has been committed ? If " Divine 
Science " can turn back the shadow on the sun dial, 
and cause yesterday to be lived over again, with the 
experience it yielded, then we can understand how the 
sin might be ' removed/ by preventing it ever being 
committed. It is mere childishness, if not something 
infinitely worse, to propose to remit sin, which the 
recording angel has registered, by ' removing it/ 
This is not " God's method of destroying sin." 

Sin is the very defection of our nature. This na- 
ture descends from parent to child by means of blood, 
" which is the life thereof," an assertion constantly 
repeated in the Old Testament. As long as this cur- 
rent of life descends, so long must the beings who 
live by it be a sinful race, ' dead unto God in tres- 
passes and sins/ without eternal life. But into the line 
of descent came the Son of God. Mrs. Eddy says, 
P- 334 : " Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self»-con- 



FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 99 

scious communion with God," which means nothing. 
Jesus Christ was " conceived of the Holy Ghost, born 
of the Virgin Mary." The words of the angel state all 
that the human mind can understand of the mighty 
undertaking. " The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
shadow thee, therefore that Holy thing which shall be 
born of thee (that holy-begotten thing), shall be 
called the Son of God." So it was that his nature 
was the Deity, and his body was of the flesh of 
man. 

In his body ran the blood of Adam's race. On 
Calvary He parted with that blood, but by virtue of his 
Divine nature He lived through the catastrophe of 
human death, and came back to life still with a body 
of this flesh, but without that blood by which only 
could be the continuance of the sinful nature of 
fallen man. He carefully referred to this, when allay- 
ing the fear of his disciples the night of his resurrec- 
tion: ' A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see I 
have/ He did not use the ordinary phrase, ' flesh 
and blood; ' there was no blood in his body. The 
wounds were open, but bloodless. This is the reason 
of that well-known assertion, strikingly made by the 
shedding of the blood of the Sacrificial Victim, and 
put into words by the inspired writer, " Without the 
shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." 

This is the Gospel S. Paul preached: "Jesus Christ 
and Him crucified," and this is not the Gospel of " Di- 
vine Science." Mrs. Eddy says, p. 227: 

The efficacy of the Crucifixion lies in the practical affection 
and goodness it demonstrated for mankind. The material blood 
of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was 



S 



100 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

shed upon the accursed tree, than it was when it was flowing in 
his veins. 

Page 327: 

Final deliverance from error .... is not reached by 
pinning one's faith to another's vicarious effort. Whosoever 
believeth that wrath is righteous cannot understand God. 

Page 328: 

One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of 
sin. 

Page 345: 

Another's suffering cannot lessen our own liability. Did the 
martyrdom of Savonarola make the crimes of his implacable 
enemies less criminal ? 

No! but Savonarola was not 'the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sins of the world.' 

Page 229: 

The invisible Christ was incorporeal, whereas Jesus was a 
corporeal or bodily existence. This dual personality of the seen 
and the unseen, the Jesus and the Christ, continued until the 
Master's ascension ; and then the human, the corporeal concept, or 
Jesus, disappeared; while the invisible, the spiritual idea, or the 
Christ, continued. 

Let us finally turn to the text-book of the " Chris- 
tian Scientists," the Bible, and learn what it says: 

11 The love of Christ constraineth us; because we 
thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; 
and that He died for all, that they which live should 
not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 
which died for (in the place of) them," I. Cor. v., 14. 

" He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in Him," I. Cor. v., 21. 

"God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sin- 



FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 101 

ful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," 
Rom. viii., 3. 

" Once, in the end of the world, hath He appeared 
to put away sin, by the sacrifice of Himself. 
Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," 
Heb. ix., 26-28. 

"We are sanctified through the offering of the body 
of Jesus Christ once for all. ... By one offering 
He hath perfected forever them that are being sancti- 
fied," Heb. x., 10-14. 

"Who in his own self bare our sins in his own 
body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should 
live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were 
healed," I. Pet. ii., 24. 

" Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh," I. Pet. 
iv., 1. 

" The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us 
from all sin," I. Joh. i., 7. 

"He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for 
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." 

" Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our 
sorrows ; and we did esteem Him stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our 
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the 
chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with 
his stripes we are healed. . . . The Lord hath 
laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It pleased the 
Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; 
when Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He 
shall see his seed, He shall prolong his days, and the 
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand," 
Isaiah liii., 4, 6, 10. 

It was thus that * The Son of Man,' the epitome of 



102 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 

humanity, placed himself in our stead, and i slew the 
enmity ' which separated the human race from God 
and Holiness, by suffering death; pouring out his 
blood as a sacrifice for sin. In Him we all died, and 
1 He that is dead is freed (justified) from sin;* hence, 
as S. Paul writes, in Romans vi., 'we are dead to sin;' 
we ' were baptized into his death; ' we, ' being planted 
together, have grown into conformity with his death;' 
our old man (our Adam nature) was crucified with 
Him that the body of sin might be rendered pow- 
erless; 'we died together with Christ;' all these ex- 
pressions, taken out of a single chapter, are only to 
be understood in the light of the fact, that Jesus 
Christ was the second Adam, and that as surely as we 
all died in Adam, so we all participate in the deeds 
of the life of the second Adam, if only we make living 
union with Him and become 'in Christ.' 

Side by side with this marvellous expression of the 
Gospel of the Grace of God, the salvation of sinners 
by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, 
place the solitary passage to which the index of the 
text-book of "Christian Science" refers us. Mrs. 
Eddy knew she must say something of the great un- 
dertaking of Jesus Christ, sin-bearing; she knew she 
was writing for people who ' called themselves Chris- 
tians,' and they must have some explanation of a 
doctrine they pretended to hold, but of whose won- 
derful and transforming grace they had had no per- 
sonal experience; for no one but a counterfeit Chris- 
tian could a second time read this paragraph. And 
I appeal to those who are not wholly reprobate, 
whose eyes the God of this world hath not wholly 
blinded, to read this passage on p. 358, and say, in 



FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 103 

the light of the verses I have above quoted from the 
Word of God, which alone reveals to us the mystery 
of the Cross, if this sentence, from the pen of the 
high-priestess of their profession, is not senseless 
blasphemy! 

Jesus bore our sins in his own body. He knew the mortal 
error which constitutes the material body, and could destroy 
that error; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had 
not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh, or his sense of ma- 
terial life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual 
power. f 






ppt>*t^ t "\J<' - 



CHAPTER X. 



CONCLUSION. 



THERE are many other subjects treated of in this 
book of ■ Science and Health,' all of which are 
as far from the truth as these with which I have 
dealt, but we have seen sufficient to brand this gospel 
as 'another gospel,' and not in any sense the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ. Many persons have tried it, and 
found it a broken cistern which held no water of 
life. Several such persons I know, and I asked one of 
them to write her experience of "Christian Science." 
She is a lady who is singularly well read; who pos- 
sesses one of the most capacious memories I have 
ever found; who for long gave herself to all that 
4 mind culture ' which is so sought after by the women 
of this generation. God led her out of darkness into 
his glorious light through the ministry of this Church; 
so that she is a competent witness to the compara- 
tive values of the Gospel of "Christian Science" and 
the Gospel S. Paul preached. 

" My life has been a busy one, in professional work, 
which required me to spend all my spare time in 
study. Religions and philosophies chiefly engaged 
my attention. One by one these failed to be con- 
clusive or restful. 'The Spirit of God moved upon 
the face of the waters.' So now in the soul of man, 



CONCLUSION. 105 

Light must reveal the chaos and create the desire for 
order ('as it was in the beginning, is now.') In my 
chaotic state of mind, 'Christian Science' appealed to 
me as being more spiritual than most religions. It 
offered much enjoyment to a person of trained mind, 
quick perceptions, and some degree of culture. But 
from these lessons I went out among the people who 
were burdened with daily toil, sins and sickness. 
They could not read the books I lent them. They 
could not understand the lessons. Yet their hearts 
were hungry, like mine, for food. And when I asked 
my teacher how the scrub-woman or the twelve-hours- 
a-day fireman could find this perpetual elevation of 
soul necessary to the faith, the answer was: 'They 
can't, till they rise out of that life." Then there were 
the sick and the sin-sick. What could my ' Christian 
Science' say to this girl, hopelessly pleading for 
peace ? ' Sin has no existence — sickness no reality; ' 
could I say that? Not in the very face of her misery! 
I dared not say that." 

"And I began to wonder, Has 'Christian Science' 
anything like that wondrous word, ' Neither do I 
condemn thee; go in peace?' Everywhere this prob- 
lem met me. And the answer of the teacher was: 
'You can do such people no good. They are not 
yet ready for the Truth.' Because of this growing 
un-christian lack of sympathy in me, I began to 
doubt the value of the ' Christian Science ' Faith." 

" It was said of Jesus, ' the common people heard 
Him gladly.' This new faith^'m^hTstiil be the truth 
of Science, but I began to omit the first word of the 
name." 

"The greater reason for my rejection of this re- 




^ 



WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.' 



ligion, was the internal evidence of the spirit, in the 
torture of conscience. * Christian Science* claimed 
to be based upon the Bible as its authority. I read 
the first great commandment, ' Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart/ etc. But the 
teachers objected to * Lord ' as implying personality. 
I must love with all my heart — Principle. I could 
think of the dear ones long dead, as at rest in Nature, 
sooner than at rest in Principle. This Principle, 
was pure Holiness and Truth. Then came the ques- 
tion : Do I honestly love, with all my heart — Holi- 
ness ? And Conscience, not wholly dead, of course 
answered, No ! What then ? i Science ' answered : 
' You must deny utterly all sin in yourself. You 
cannot sin. There is no such thing as sin. It is un- 
real.' But the torture of conscience was very real." 

" Then I read again in my Bible, ' This is life 
Eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ/ I stopped there." 

"' Christian Science* had told me of God, that is, 
Principle. It had told me of Christ ; that, too, is 
Principle. But of Jesus, l Science ' had said : ' He 
was a living person, who once walked and talked and 
loved as we do/ Here was what the hungry heart 
wanted; a living Friend to know and believe in. The 
'Scientist* said, 'Jesus, the man.' But the Bible 
does not separate the words; it says 'Jesus Christ, 
whom to know is Life Eternal.' And my heart 
quickly answered to this, ' If I may only know Him! ' 
And I began to read the Gospel story of Jesus Christ, 
and there was then something to say to tired, sick 
people. They could understand those stories of that 
life in Galilee." 



CONCLUSION. 107 

" ■ Science ' proved itself a beautiful thing for sunny 
days; but it failed me in my sorest need. And so 
when people tell me they are happy in the study of 
'Christian Science/ my heart replies, ' Yes! you are 
happy, while as yet you see no end.' But it has an 
end. And He has said: ' This (not some other faith) 
is Life Eternal, to know Him and Jesus Christ.' " 

"The difference is as light to darkness; He led me 
out of darkness into his marvellous light, and now I 
know the reality of what S. Paul tells us, that our 
hearts cannot conceive the joy God has in store for 
those who love Him. And my daily prayer is, that all 
who are seeking peace, through 'Christian Science' 
teachings, may be led on through that desert to the 
Waters of Life." 

The truth that there is in "Christian Science" 
is this : The healings it affects are the natural con- 
sequences of the power of mind over matter, thought 
and w T ill over body. The processes it adopts happen 
to be peculiarly favorable to direct ' suggestion ' to 
the affected part. The sitting quiet ; the banishing 
from the mind all extraneous subjects ; shutting the 
eyes ; the soft voice of the healer ; the repetition of 
meaningless sentences, the intelligence is not stirred 
by them, there is nothing which can cause the mind 
to work ; it is a sort of stroking the mind until it 
drowsily purrs, leaving the repeated 'suggestion' po- 
tent ; this is a mode of mesmerizing. All this con- 
tributes to stimulate that nerval force, or at least to 
allow it free course, which, in certain classes of dis- 
ease, is all that is needful for a return to health. 

We hear of the peace " Christian Scientists ' affirm 
they acquire. This is the result of that meditative 



108 



A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 



quiet which is the great resource of the profession. 
The Quakers attained it. They spoke softly, they 
walked slowly, they sat in silence long, their dress 
was of soft fabrics and of neutral colors, and all this 
contributed to allay that irritation which the attrition 
of every-day life is so apt to produce. 

Let any one deliberately retire for only half an 
hour, daily, and sit still, communing with their own 
hearts, and doing nothing, looking at nothing ; and 
it is astonishing how quickly will come evenness of 
disposition. 

And in fine, though I say it with a sad heart, one 
main reason of the spread of this delusion is, that it 
gives a host of people a means of notoriety and even 
emolument, who without it, would neither attain 
the one nor gain the other. It very rarely appeals 
either to the really educated on one hand, or to the 
uneducated on the other ; but its natural habitat is 
in that vast class of people who lie between, who have 
little cultivated the power of thought, and cannot 
keep in mental view two ideas at a time, and there- 
fore are unable to draw sound deductions. 

It is a very curious sight, and one which affords 
much serious reflection to the sociologist, to see such 
a number of intelligent people, listening constantly 
to assertions their hourly experience contradicts ; 
being assured of the power of the theory to banish 
sickness, when the vast majority of attempted cures 
wholly fail; to hear them ever lauding self- repression, 
but never doing those works of kindness and charity 
which are the usual offspring of unselfishness; and 
to see them gathering to listen to < Readings/ which 
are nonsensical. To the sincere Christian, it is a sad 



CONCLUSION. 10.) 

and painful sight to see people ' hewing out for them- 
selves broken cisterns, which can contain no water,' 
when at their very doors there is bursting and bub- 
bling that well of ' the water of life,' which the God, 
who loves us with an everlasting love, has graciously 
opened in our midst for ' sin and for uncleanness; ' 
wherefore, then, dost thou not ask of Him and He 
will give thee living water, that thou mayest drink 
and live forever? 

This almost cursory examination of a deeply in- 
teresting subject has brought under our notice 
much food for reflection. Here is a theory which has 
been accepted by 200,000 persons, and is by them 
being propagated with an ardour which is not a little 
astonishing. A large proportion of these thousands 
have undoubtedly been relieved from ailments more 
or less irritating. In very many of these cases, ample 
opportunity was given to the ordinary medical prac- 
tice to try its nostrums, and without effect. 

We believe an honest perusal of the foregoing pages, 
especially if the investigation be continued in the 
direction indicated, will lead to the conviction that 
all these cures have been of disorders due to some 
disorganization of the nerval system. That this mas- 
terly power of nerve force, which holds so high a 
position in the commonwealth of our bodies, is emi- 
nently under the governance of the will. That this 
will is not always under the direction of conscious- 
ness, but appears to be also the executive of that de- 
partment of the mind which may be called 'the subject- 
ive mind.' That this mind can receive suggestions, 
and put them into effect even better than when con- 
sciousness, and reason, its trained servitor, direct the 



110 "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.' 

will to require the obedience. That if when in an hyp- 
notic sleep, this ' subjective mind ' receives a sugges- 
tion, of which nothing is remembered upon awaken- 
ing, it will put it into practice, if it possibly can, 
without the intervention of the conscious will. 

And more than this, this power can be invoked, 
when the subject is not actually put to sleep mes- 
merically; but that when the mind is partially un- 
conscious, then the ' subjective mind,' liberated, as 
it were, from the necessity of being in attendance 
upon the active intelligence, follows the direction of 
the Suggestion' impressed upon it, and goes about 
to set to rights the nerval defection. 

It would be strange, indeed, if a profession ever 
upon the alert to discover remedies for disorders, 
and alleviations for distress, should refuse to learn 
from the lessons that " Christian Science " undoubt- 
edly teaches. It is high time that, in the medical 
curriculum, room should be made for the study of the 
power of the will to rectify bodily disorder. It has 
been said that hypnotism is too dread a power, and 
as yet too uncontrollable, to be used indiscriminately; 
but how many poisons are in daily use by the medi- 
cal practitioner, and in his educated hand are of the 
greatest therapeutic benefit ? Let the men whose 
life-work it is to gather for us every healing expe- 
rience, give their attention, to dissect out of the woof 
and web of this blurred fabric of " Christian Science " 
the golden thread which leads to the secret of the 
cures so numerously performed, and let another 
department be definitely added to therapeutics. 
Meanwhile, let the law require that no " Christian 
Science " healer, or others of that sort, shall under- 



CONCLUSION. Ill 

take to treat any sick person who has not consulted 
a properly authorized practitioner, to ascertain the 
nature of the disease, that it be not of a sort likely 
to terminate fatally. 

For let death occur, and whatever the remorse, the 
traveller will not return from that bourne. 

This authoritative investigation would tend to refer 
the curative power to its proper source, and deliver 
many well-meaning people from accepting teachings 
at variance with those truths upon which they have 
always been taught to place dependence. It would, 
indeed, seem that S. Paul had in his mind erratic 
theories of this sort when he wrote to Timothy: "Now 
the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times 
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to 
seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." 

There are those who say, that it is of little moment 
what we believe, if only we are in earnest and live de- 
cently. But to reach any destination chiefly depends 
upon the accuracy of our knowledge as to whether the 
road we are travelling will lead us to the place whither 
we would go. Energy, determination and persever- 
ance on the wrong road, can only lead us further 
away from the goal. How wrong the religious ven- 
tures of Mrs. Eddy are, we have seen. They are all 
the more dangerous because they adopt the air and 
language of Scripture. They profess to take their 
whole authority from the Word of God, and seem to 
readily agree with the dicta of revelation. But, as 
the wisest of the sons of men well said : " There is a 
way that seemeth right unto a man : but the end 
thereof are the ways of death," Proverbs xvi., 25. 



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